^ 




















■- ^ - 


■^=c^ - -- 


V "5> ' _^ 


^j>'' _-j> 




' — w 




3i>^ i> 




-< 


^ -^ — —^ 


>^o -> 


" 1 ~ ) 


.— ^ 




>:>o ^ 


) y 


-=^ 


^ > ~~^ 


:>:>> j> 


> ") 


,==:;^ 




~>j>'^ !> 


^ > 


-"^-=--^ 




:>^ > I2> 


■) ^ 


-^— ^ 




^^:>-^ ^ 


> 


> ' 


> ^>»Z> 


~:>3>^ ~ 


^ 


) "Z 


> ^X>»>I> 


7>3>>> : 


.) 


-^ "i: 


> :2*^:i> 


3 >>> : 


' > z 


-.^3 


» ::2>-^,:::> 


i>>>^> .: 


J' 
> 


> 
> 


> .>3>v::> 




> 
> 


> 






3> 


r> 


!>>>>:> 


_>> ^-> 


> . 


J> 


.':>'^)>>> 


^ -^ ^>:> 


> 


:> 


Z> » 


_3 > ^> 


> 


3 


r> >^^ 


:> > ^ > 




> 


:^ :>> 


;::> -^ > ^ 


>• 


:> 


-!> '2> 


:r>^ >^ 


>' 


^ 


z> ~:>> 


_^ '^ x> 


^ 


> 


^ 2> 


:3>^ ^:> 


>^ 


3 


:^ ^ 


^^ >-> 


> 


> 


:> i> 


:^> » 


y> 


^^ 


> ^ 


:^> >:> 


:» 


^:3 


:>3> 


J>> j>:> 


>> ; 


>^ 


^ -^ 


J> ^ ::> :> 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf _?^§^°^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



^:f^ 



:^ :» 
pi"- 1:» 



>^ca.- 






-^^^OBi* 



jst 28, 1885. 



Price, 25 Cents. 



No. 135. 




Issued 

moathly. 



Copyright, 1884, by Funk & Wagnalm. 
EnterecL ia New York Feii-Offic* m •Moad-clMt imU maitaf. 



Subscription price 
per year, $1.50. 



OUT OF EGYPT; 



A SERIES OF 



Bible Readings on the Book of Exodus, 

Sent, postpaid^ on r§eeipt of price. 
Paper, 25 cts. ; Cloth, Boards, $1.00. 



CONTENTS. 
I. The House of Bondage. V. The Conflict Begun. 

II. Preparation FOR THE Ministry. VI. Bedemption by Blood. 

III. Difficulties Removed. VII. God's Leading. 

IV. Entering on the Work. VIII. The Mixed Multitude. 



" Bright and manly in utterance, scriptural in teaching, enriched 
everywhere with suitable anecdote and apt illustration, this volume 
is a most welcome practical commentary on the portion of the Word 
with which it deals." — British Messenger. 

" The bondage, deliverance and subsequent experiences of the 
children of Israel are expounded in detail as types of those of the 
soul, and we have been greatly struck by the admirable way in which, 
the parallelism is drawn out." — Record. 

" Br. Pentecost seeks to make the Old Testament a living book 
and to find in it foregleams of the truth so fully taught in the New 
Covenant. May his eflfbrts lead to a more diligent study of the record 
of Divine revelation." — Irish Congregational Magazine, 

" A capital little book, full of both mental and moral force, and 
is all aglow with evangelical sentiment. Dr. Pentecost aims directly 
at the heart and conscience, and enforces his appeals by numerous 
original and telling incidents. "— Primitive Methodist. 

" Simple, direct utterances, full of illustration and pointed appli- 
cation.'* — Literary Worlds London. 

" The book is not professedly scholarly, yet it gives the results 
of a considerable amount of scholarship. It is adapted to the relig- 
ious doubts of our day, and it unites with a generally familiar and 
colloquial style, vigor of 'thought and occasional outbursts of elo- 
quence. Its marked feature, however, is spiritual fervor and practical 
application. We should be glad to know that it had a wide circula- 
tion."^ — The Christian. ' 

NEW YORK: 

FUNK & WAGNALLS, 

10 AND 13 Dey Street. 



242 

IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK; 

Or, The Profit and Pleasure of Bible Study, 

-WITH INTRODUCTIONS 

By REVS. JOSEPH COOK and J. H. VINCENT, D.D. 

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price. 
Paper, 25 cfs. ; Cloth Boards, $1.00. 



"There are few popular books about the Bible that we are prepared more 
heartily to recommend than that of Mr. Pentecost ; for hardly one could be named 
that is so likely to lead to a thorough study and life-long use of the Bible itself. 
It is richly experimental, is adapted to the special needs of our time, unites manly 
vigor and trenchant criticism with intense spiritual fervor and tenderness of feel- 
ing, is full of real insight, and might perhaps be best described as Bengel's Gnomon 
for the common people in the English-speaking countries of the world. This is 
high praise ; but any one who makes the acquaintance of the volume will find that 
we have not exaggerated its merits.^'— Christian Leader. 

"This is an almost unique book, and it will, we are sure, be widely read by 
Bible students. No one can do so without feeling stimulated to a more diligent 
study of The Book. It is not strictly speaking, evidential ; yet the key to valuable 
Scripture evidence is to be found within. It is not exegetical ; but the careful 
reader will be taught thereby a sound method of exposition. It is not homiletical, 
although the seed-corn for dozens of addresses are contained in its brief compass. 
Buy it— we can say to all— read it, as we did, with your Bible open, and a cominon- 
place book to hand, ready to catch up and store away many of the precious things 
so lavishly scattered throughout its pages. Dr. Pentecost has said and written 
many good things in his time ; but we doubt if anything of more abiding value 
than this volume has yet issued from his laboratory."— M^A^ and Day. 

** There are many thrilling thoughts in its ^z.gQS."''— Evangelical Magazine. 

" Mr. Pentecost is well known in Boston as having been a most valuable and 
important helper of Mr. Moody in his evangelistic services. The addresses here 
before us reveal a mind and heart thoroughly versed in the Word of God. His 
freshness and suggest! veness and his great knowledge of Scripture admirably fit 
him to guide young converts in their Bible study."— 7%e Watchman. 

" A capital book ! And one which, in these times, is fitted to be specially 
useful. It is a vindication of the Bible's Divine authority, an exposition of some 
of its great lines of teaching, and a manual for guidance as to Bible study— all in 
one. It is written in the most popular and homely language, and with much spirit- 
ual force as well as intellectual pith. There are many things in it well worth 
quoting ; but our limits are small, and we must content ourselves with introducing 
our readers to a very interesting, and withal stimulating, book. May it do much 
good ! '''•^British Messenger, 

NEW YORK: 

FUNK & WAGNALLS, 

10 AND 12 Det Street. 

f 



243 



BOOKS BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON. 



THE TREASURY OF DAVID,— Kn original exposition of the book of Psalms. 
Complete in seven volumes; six now ready. 8vo, cloth, per voyame, $2.00; 
sheep, $2.75. 

Philip ScHAFF, D.D.: "The most important and practical work of the age 
on the Psalter. Full of the force and genius of this celebrated preacher and 
ricii in selections from the entire range of literature." 

John Hall, D.D. : " Mr. Spurgeon's great work on the Psalms is without an 
cqaalas an exposition of that portion ol Scripture." 

rHEODORE L. CuYLER, D.D.: "I bavc used this work for five years and 
found it worthy of its name. Whoso goeth in there will find * ricbipoils.' " 

'•William M.Taylor, D.D: *'Inthe exposition of ihe heart, 'The Treas- 
ury of David is suigeneris^ rich in experience and pre-eminenti> devcticnal. 
The exposition is always fresh. To the preacher it is especially suggestive." 

MY SERMON NOTES.— Outlme of sermons delivered in The Tabernacle, 
London. Vol. 1., Gen.— Prov.; Vol. II., Eccles.— Malachi; Vol. III., St. 
Matt.— Acts; Vol. IV., Rom. — Rev. 8vo cloth, each $1.00. 

Ohristian World, London : '* Preachers of every grade will find some fresh 
suggestion under every head." 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND MEDITATIONS; or, '' Flowers from a Puritan's 

Garden*' — Distilled and dispensed by Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. i2mo, paper 

25 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

Ledger, Philadelphia: "Thomas Manton, D.D., who died near the close of 

the seventeenth century, was a voluminous preacher and writer. He received 

praise from his contemporaries, which has been echoed by evcTy generation 

since. Mr. Spurgeon has selected the most striking and epigrammatic passages of 

his writings and appended to each a * meditation.' " 



THE CLEW OF THE MAZE; or. Modern hifidelity and How to Meet It.— 
Together with a series of non-religious papers, "The Spare Half Hour." 
Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 75 cents. 
Christian Herald, London: ** As fyill of good things as an egg is of meat. Its 

treatment of the epidemic of skepticism is thorcugh." 

TALKS TO FARMERS.— X book of Nineteen Discourses to Farmers. i2mo, 

cloth, $1.00. 

Canada Baptist, Toronto: **It will be especially valuable to farmers, but 
all will enjoy the practical common sense, the abundance of illustrative anecdote 
and the richness of imagery." 

JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK; or. Plain Advice to Plain People.— 
Bound in the samr volume is Carlyle*s Edinburgh address *' On the Choice 
of Books." 4to, manilla, 12 cents. 
Watchman, London : "It is racy, pungent, plain, and to the point." 



JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES; or. More of His Plain Talk to Plain 
People. — Containing 39 quaint illustrations. Price, paper, 15 cents. 
Christian, London: " The very quintessence of uncommon common-sense." 



THE BIBLE AND THE NEWSPAPER; or. How to Garner Bible Truths 
from Current News.—^to, manilla. Price, paper, 15 cents. 



FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 10 and 12 Dey St., New York. 



"IN THE YOLUME 



OF THE BOOK:" 



OR, 



THE PEOFIT AKD PLEASUEE 
OF BIBLE STUDY. 



BT 



GEORGE F. PENTECOST, M.A 

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BT 

Revs. JOSEPH COOK and J. H. VINCENT, D.D. 



/i 



FUNK & WAGNALLS: 

NEW YOKK : ^ggg LONDON : 

10 AND 12 Det Street. 44 Fleet Street, 

All Rights Reserved. 



'^ 



oO 






Entered, accordinpj to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by 

FUNK & WAGNALLS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



PEEFAOE TO SECOND EDITION 



It is a matter of pleasure to an author to know that he 
has not written in vain. In giving forth a new edition 
of '^In the Volume of the Book" it is gratifying to 
know that the continued demand for successive editions 
of this little work, both in this country and abroad, indi- 
cates an unfailing interest in those books which help the 
reader to better study for himself the Word of God. 

Few important changes have been made in this edi- 
tion ; otherwise it has been carefully revised and all 
references to the Word of God verified. 

The author gratefully acknowledges the favor which 
has been accorded to the little volume by more than 
forty thousand readers since the first edition was pub- 
lished. 

Beooklyn, N. Y., September 10, 1885. 



OOS'TENTS. 



PAGE 

Author's Preface to English Edition 5 

Introduction, by Rev. Joseph Cook 7 

Introduction, by Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D 9 

CHAPTER I. 
The Unity op the Bible 21 

CHAPTER II. 
The Bible and other Religious Books 27 

CHAPTER III. 
The Bible not a Scientific, but a Religious Book 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Bible an Inspired Book 38 

CHAPTER V. 
Christ and the Scriptures 49 

CHAPTER VI. 
What the Bible Contains for the Believer 56 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Importance of the Old Testament 76 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PAOS 

Study of the Individual Books 84 

CHAPTER IX. 
The New Testament. 103 

CHAPTER X. 
Lack of Interest in Bible Study 115 

CHAPTER XI. 
Bible Mis-readers 122 

CHAPTER XIL 
How to Read the Bible 131 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Heart and the Scriptures 151 

Appendix , 171 



INTEODUCTION. 

BY REV. JOSEPH COOK. 



It is well known in Boston that whenever Mr. Moody 
was obliged to be absent from the great assemblies or the 
sacred inquiry-rooms of the Boston Tabernacle, in the 
winter of 1876, Mr. Pentecost was the only man who 
could fill the gap. I heard Mr. Pentecost several times 
in those days, and rejoiced greatly in his remarkable en- 
dowments and their employment in the service of bibli- 
cal truth. The great characteristic of Mr. Pentecost's 
preaching is its saturation, not only with a knowledge, 
but with the very spirit of the Holy Scriptures. 

His Hints on Bihle Reading have a precious aroma 
of deep Christian experience, reminding one of the best 
passages of BengePs Gnomon^ a work for many gener- 
ations renowned among scholars, not less for its piety 
than for its learning. Mr. Pentecost has been, very evi- 
dently, accustomed to study the Bible, not only with the 
microscope of critical scholarship, but also with that spir- 
itual telescope through which one can look only when on 
his knees. 

Providence has endowed Mr. Pentecost with extraor- 
dinary strength and intensity of feeling, and has led him 
through a religious experience which has harmonized his 
intellect and his heart, and gathered up all the powers of 



8 INTRODUCTION". 

his being to be used as a single thunderbolt in the hands 
of his conscience. 1 value exceedingly his unapologetic 
courage and incisiveness in attacking fashionable evils in 
the Church. This knowledge of society and of human 
nature has been widened to a breadth very uncommon, 
as I believe, in a man of his years, and is consecrated 
wholly to the service of an undiluted and aggressive 
Christianity. 

My prayers are joined with those of the many com- 
munities to which he has ministered in holy things, that 
his life as an Evangelist may, by the Divine blessing, 
bring forth permanent and abundant fruit an hundred 
and a thousandfold. 

JOSEPH COOK. 

Boston, Massachusetts. 



INTEODUCTION, 



BY EEV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D. 



In response to a universally felt human need there 
comes to us, among the many books of this world, one 
Book which claims to be divine in its aim, authorship, 
construction, preservation, and power. It is the oldest 
of existing books. It is the wisest of all books. There 
is nothing from the gardens of the far East which excels 
it in beauty and sweetness. It is a book full of sublim- 
ity. It is as pure as it is sublime. 

The unity of the Bible is one of its greatest marvels. 
Coming to us through forty different minds — these minds 
thinking and recording through a period of more than 
fifteen hundred years, located in widely separated sec- 
tions of the eastern world — ^it is throughout a unit. 

The contents of the Bible are varied — History, Geog- 
raphy, Architecture, Archaeology, Biography, Poetry, 
Geology, Biology, Zoology, Botany, Meteorology, Eth- 
nology, Doctrine, Ethics, Prophecy, Metaphysics. It is 
in itself the marvel of marvels among literary produc- 
tions, and the source of all the deepest, wisest, strongest, 
sweetest, holiest things that have appeared in any litera- 
ture to this day ; and it has been an inspiration through 
the ages to artists, authors, statesmen, poets, and phi- 
losophers. It is the foundation-rock of the civihzation 



10 IKTRODUCTIOIS'. 

that to to-day dominates the planet. It is the corner- 
stone of wise and enhghtened governments ; the founder 
of colleges and universities ; the text-book of sages, stu- 
dents, and babes ; the book of the school ; the book of 
the family ; the book of the pulpit ; the book of the 
sick-chamber. As this life fades away the Bible be- 
comes a lamp from the everlasting life, illuminating the 
darkest hour. Such is the marvellous volume which 
has been given to the Church and to the world ' ' for 
Doctrine, for Eeproof, for Correction, for Instruction 
in Righteousness : that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 

There are depths below depths in this deep volume. 
The superficial student who climbs to its summits may 
find flowers and fruits on the surface. Here is a soil 
whence may come to him still richer and worthier prod- 
ucts. Underneath that soil are layers of rocks and veins 
of precious mineral, and here and there glittering gems 
of rare value. Deeper still there are caverns dark as 
night to the worldling, but rich with untold brilliancy to 
the spiritually enlightened, and underneath all are the firm 
foundations of doctrine, concerning the infinite God, his 
character, his essential being, his will, his history, his 
providence, his holy and everlasting purposes. 

No two persons can look upon the heavens at night 
and behold the same number of stars ; nor does any one 
star have precisely the same appearance to them. And 
there is an infinite variety and unlimited amount of truth 
contained in the Bible. There are revelations to indi- 
viduals, and perhaps no two can see precisely the same 
truth or truths in the same relations. Everything de- 
pends upon the capacity and spiritual perception of the 



INTRODUCTIO:Nr. 11 

student. A child will delight in the phenomenal parts 
of the book — the vivid pictures, the living conversa- 
tions, the interesting and remarkable combinations. His 
venerable grandsire, whose thought has penetrated be- 
yond the letter, will scarcely notice now the phenomenal 
portions of the "Word which were once so interesting to 
him. He sees underneath it all, out of a deep spiritual 
experience, a divine meaning shining out of every 
sentence and glowing between the lines. He hears the 
voice of God. He enjoys the raptures which come 
through a personal appropriation of the divine nature. 

Between these two extremes — the child and the sage 
— we find the advanced student who dwells in the liter- 
ature of the Scriptures, who delights in its ethical stand- 
ards, in its metaphysical unfoldings, in its marvellous 
delineations of human character, in its displays of divine 
wisdom counteracting human designs and bringing to 
pass among men wonders of goodness and of grace. 
The child, the student, the sage, and the saint, study the 
same Word ; and each finds in it somewhat for himself : 
and the degree of his insight depends in part upon the 
amount of knowledge which he has concerning the con- 
tents of the Book as a whole ; and above all upon the 
spiritual tone which he brings to his researches. 

Whatever tends to the systematic, thorough, analyti- 
cal, and scientific method in Bible study will be of im- 
mense advantage to every grade of pupil. The geo- 
graphical elements of Scripture have apparently no more 
to do with the complete picture of divine truth than 
does the study of plaster casts by the artist who pro- 
duces a painting ; but the days spent by the artist in 
the study of the casts prepare him for the worthier work 



12 INTllODUCTlOi^. 

of the after-days. There is nothing in the Bible which 
is beneath the careful scrutiny of scientific minds ; and 
the more thoroughly and exhaustively its different ele- 
ments are investigated, the greater the joy to him who, 
with pure, devout, spiritual insight, is able afterward 
to read the innermost things of the Word. 

We rejoice, therefore, in every movement by the 
Church, and by cultured and sacred writers in the 
Church, which tends to the more thorough, systematic, 
and scientific study of the Word of God — whether it be 
by the aid of simple diagrams in the Sabbath-school 
Primary Class, the carefully constnicted questions of 
the intermediate class, the analytical methods of the 
adult class, the textual combinations of the " Bible 
reading," or the deep, thoughtful, prayerful, fervent 
penetration of truth in its highest forms by the soul en- 
lightened and possessed by the H.oly Ghost. 

The book before us has peculiar value in that it pre- 
sents in a most condensed form the wisest thoughts 
concerning the spirit, aim, and methods of biblical study ; 
and because of its sensible suggestions to aid minister, 
teacher, and private Christian, in this important work. 
It is a plain, practical help to intelligent Scripture study. 
The first edition has already had a wide circulation 
and has received cordial tributes from experienced and 
cultured students. One says, '^ It is full of marrow 
and fatness :" another, '' It secures interest ; supplies 
motive ; and tells how the thing is done :" another, '' It 
is fragrant with the aroma of the Word, a sort of her- 
barium :" and Joseph Cook says concerning it, '^Its 
chapters are mountain summits, laden with the dew of 
Hermon." These tributes are all deserved. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

Let all Christians of every grade, however diverse 
their capacities or needs, study the Word of God. Out 
of all the study soinewhat of good must come. The 
apparently dead trunk and branches of the Word planted 
in the garden of the youthful mind may to-day seem 
useless, but when the life of the spring-time comes, at 
the rising of the sun in the heart of the pupil, lo ! life 
shall pass through trunk, limb, branch, and twig, until 
the buds swell, the blossoms shine out in their fragrance, 
and the tree shall stand in verdure and fruitf ulness be- 
fore us. 

The centaur Chiron was the tutor of Achilles. He 
fed the young child on the marrow of lions and other 
wild beasts to give him strength and courage. Let us 
feed our youth on the rich doctrines of the Word of 
God, that they may have power to resist temptation, and 
to make bold, aggressive war against evil of every kind. 
That we may thus teach, let us study. That we may 
give, let us have. And while guided by our author into 
a deeper appreciation of biblical truth, and aided in the 
habitual study of it for personal growth, we shall guide 
and aid others who need and covet the same help. 

J. H. VINCENT, D.D. 
Plainfield, New Jersey. 



** Blessed Loed, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written 
for our learning, grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, 
mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort 
of Thy Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope 
of everlasting life^ which Thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Amen." 



** God hath endowed ns with different faculties, suitable and pro- 
portional to the different objects that engage them. We discover 
sensible things by our senses, rational things by our reason, things 
intellectual by understanding ; but divine and celestial things He 
has reserved for the exercise of our faith, which is a kind of divine 
and superior sense in the soul. Our reason and understanding may 
at some times snatch a glimpse, but cannot take a steady and adequate 
prospect of things so far above their reach and sphere. Thus, by the 
help of natural reason, I may know there is a God, the first cause and 
original of all things ; but his essence, attributes, and will, are hid 
within the veil of inaccessible light, and cannot be discerned by us 
but through faith in his divine revelation. He that walks without 
this light walks in darkness, though he may strike out some faint and 
glimmering sparkles of his own. And he that, out of the gross and 
wooden dictates of his natural reason, carves out a religion to him- 
self, is but a more refined idolater than those who worship stocks 
and stones, hammering an idol out of his fancy, and adoring the 
works of his own imagination. For this reason God is nowhere said 
to be jealous, but upon the account of his worship. '* 

Pilgrim's Progress, Part III. 



PEELUDE. 



Three Facts : The Bible, Jesns, and the Christian Chnrch — Sir Wal- 
ter Scott and the Bible— The Eternal Word and the Written Word 
— Christ's Incarnation in the Scriptures — Jesus the Key to the 
Bible. 

The student of Christianity does not have to look very 
far or long in the direction of his study to behold three 
marvellous facts, each of them pre-eminent by compari- 
son with all other similar facts. 

First : The Bible. There is no other book that can 
compare with it ; even if we only consider it as a book, 
without reference to its divine origin. The most won- 
derful book the world has ever seen : its power and in- 
fluence on men, on nations, on civilization — for centu- 
ries, have been untold, there is no denying this. 

Second : Jesus Christ. Among men there is none like 
Him : all agree to this. Though his life was brief on 
the earth, his country small and insignificant, his imme- 
diate influence limited to a few common people, his 
death a cruel and ignominious one — though He wrote no 
books, founded no organization, and disappeared from 
the world nearly two thousand years ago, after only 
three years of public life — his influence and power have 
outlasted that of all the men of his time or of any time. 
His name is enshrined in the hearts of countless mill- 
ions, without reference to country, government, clime, 
or circumstances in life — high or low, bond or free, cult- 
ured or ignorant. His sway over the hearts and con- 



18 PRELUDE. 

sciences of men is greater than that of all kings and 
earthly powers. His name is the symbol of everything 
good and noble, loving and beneficent ; the inspiration 
of the best of the living, the only comfort of the dying. 
Without stopping to account for this phenomenal influ- 
ence and power — greater to-day than ever before — we 
only call attention to it as an unchallenged fact. 

The third fact is : The Church of Christ, the result 
or outcome of the Book and the Man — the greatest or- 
ganization the world ever saw. It has outlived all em- 
pires, governments, and nations, and has penetrated all ; 
it is world-wide, and exists wherever the Book and the 
Man are known. 

But we have to do in this little book with the two 
former facts only. Without the Bible Jesus has no his- 
torical existence ; and without Jesus the Bible has no 
vital power and no religious significance. We wish to 
consider these two preeminent facts ; their relation to 
each other ; and the significance and power of them both 
with reference to ourselves. 

When Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he called his son- 
in-law, Mr. Lockhart, and said : " Read to me." " Out 
of which book, Sir Walter?" said Mr. Lockhart. The 
dying poet, looking at him earnestly, said : " Lockhart, 
there is but one book. Head to me out of the Bible." 
Happy the man who has come to understand that the 
Bible is the book in all the world, and that Jesus Christ 
is the only person to whom he can yield his heart in 
supreme and undivided allegiance ! 

If Jesus Christ was " God manifest in the flesh," it 
is also true that the Bible, in a very high and important 
sense, is a manifestation of Jesus Christ in the word. 
The written word is the living portraiture of the Eternal 
and Incarnate Word who was '^ made flesh and dwelt 



PRELUDE. 



19 



55 



among us. ' It is this that makes Christ and the Book 
inseparable. Should we take Christ out of the Bible 
there would be no Bible left. 

Thus we come to this conclusion : Jesus Christ is the 
key to the interpretation of the Bible. In reading its 
sacred pages ; in contemplating its great characters ; in 
unfolding its symbols ; in interpreting its types ; in 
studying the history of the chosen people, and even the 
history of the creation ; in seeking the interpretation 
of its great prophecies — take Jesus Christ as the key to 
unlock all. He who reads with Jesus as the key will 
read understandingly and be made wise unto salvation ; 
otherwise he will only become wise in his own conceits, 
and probably wrest the Scriptures to his own condem- 
nation. 



"m THE YOLtlME OF THE BOOK.'^ 



CHAPTER I. 



THE UKITY OF THE BIBLE, 



A Manifold Book — Many Writers — Great Variety of Matter — Not a 
"heterogeneous jumble" — Unity of the Bible compared with 
Unity in Nature — Principal Dawson on Physiography — Science 
following in the wake of the Bible— The Bible a Development — 
The Unity of the Bible an evidence of its Divine Origin. 

Upon opening this book, and hastily turning over its 
pages, we are first struck with the fact that it is made 
up of sixty-six different tracts, or lesser books. We next 
discover that these books were written at different 
times, covering a period of more than fifteen hundred 
years ; and that they were, of course, the composition, 
humanly speaking, of many different writers, among 
whom were educated and uneducated men, statesmen 
and peasants, kings and herdsmen, profound philoso- 
phers and simple-minded fishermen ; prophets, apostles, 
kings, and priests ; jast men and their helpers, as Paul 
and Luke and Silas. We also find that these books were 
written in different countries ; in different languages ; 
under different circumstances, and were addressed to 
different peoples — Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, 
Greeks and barbarians. 

We also notice the great variety of its contents. His- 



22 ^'IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

tories — of the creation ; of races, nations, and individ- 
uals ; divine institutions and ordinances ; laws for life 
toward God and man ; revelations of the mind of God, 
and the judgment of Heaven touching all things here 
below ; the opening of the world to come, revealing the 
destiny of men, both of the just and the unjust ; proph- 
ecies and the historic record of their fulfilment ; the 
wliole culminating in the New Testament Scriptures, 
which set forth Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, 
crucified, buried, raised again from the dead, having 
purged our sins, and sitting on the right hand of the 
Majesty on high (Heb. i. 3); the Holy Ghost sent 
down from heaven giving demonstration and power to 
the preached Gospel (Acts i.) whereby guilty sinners are 
converted to God and added to the Church (Acts ii. 47), 
and finally through death and resurrection united with 
Christ in his eternal glory (Rev. xx., xxi.). 

But now what of all this variety in books, authors, 
matter, and manner, and in the circumstances under 
which they were written ? Does it follow that the Bible 
is a '^ heterogeneous jumble" of ancient histories or 
legends, of myths, rehgious speculations, and recorded 
superstitions ? By no means : no more than it follows 
that because my body is made up of a great variety of 
members, each differing from the other in structure, 
oflBce work, position, and relative honor, it is therefore 
a ^^heterogeneous jumble" of legs, arms, feet, hands, 
eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers, toes, flesh, blood, bones, 
muscles, tissues, and skin. There are many members 
in the one body, and all the members of that one body, 
being many, are ^' one body." So also is the Bible 
one book, though made up of many books, each differ- 
ing from the other as each member in the body differs 
from all others. 



THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 23 

Each book in the Bible is animated by the same spirit, 
and forms an essential part of the whole. We are not 
afraid of pushing this point too far, for it is most neces- 
sary that we should understand it. The great diversity 
in the books of the Bible is not only entirely consistent 
with its glorious unity, but in a very important sense 
necessary to it. 

Who would think of denying the unity of this material 
world — the great book of nature — because it is written 
not only in the rocks, but in the sea, on myriad leaves, 
in the flowers, and in the meadows, in the constitution 
of man, and on the butterfly's wings ; and spelled out 
in part in the starry constellations of the sky, and sung 
in the song of birds ? How vast the book of nature ! 
how deep its mysteries ! and how seemingly contradic- 
tory some of its revelations ! How the record of cre- 
ation has been written in language of tire and storm, 
with the pen of ice, and ink of water ; in the steady on- 
flowing river, and in the rending earthquake ! This 
grand book of nature has among it, scribes, prophets, 
priests, and kings, its soaring poets, and its sweet psalm- 
ists. In kingly and peasant fashion, too, has it been 
written ; and yet who denies its unity ? Geology, as- 
tronomy, optics, chemistry, and biology : how many 
are the books ! how different the subject treated by 
each ! put them all together, and you have the story of 
creation. Each book by itself is a fragment ; all put to- 
gether make one grand whole. As yet the revelation of 
God in nature has not been put together : all is frag- 
mentary still ; so far, at least, as we have spelled out the 
story from the rocks, earth, air, and sea, and from the 
living creatures, and from those dead ages ago. 

Principal Dawson says, in a recent article in the 
Princeton Review: ^^ Subjects" in the natural and 



24 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

physical sciences, " once thought distinct are tending to 
coalesce. This is markedly the case with the great nat- 
ural forces of light, heat, and electricity. It occurs also 
in the domain of organization among animals and plants, 
broad resemblances being observed where before only 
differences were discerned. The spectroscope has united 
optics and chemistry with one another and with astron- 
omy. Geology has welded together in the past history 
of the earth a great number of the physical sciences. 
Very recently a text-book has been prepared to teach 
these relationships under the name of physiography- — a 
name which may eventually become well known and 
highly important. It is undoubtedly the duty of science, 
while pursuing actively the duty of research along in- 
dividual lines, to study practically this consolidation of 
the sciences. " 

In this testimony of a great scientist to the law of 
unity in diversity in nature, we have a confession of how 
slowly and painfully science is creeping along in the 
wake of the Bible ; recognizing in its sphere what is most 
apparent in the realm of revelation. Let young Chris- 
tian readers then, instead of being staggered at what 
may seem at first glance to be confusion, rejoice that the 
God of nature and of the Bible is one God ; and that 
just as there is unity in the organization of the material 
universe, so full of diversity, so there is unity in the 
organization of the Bible, though it be made up of great 
diversity. 

And the more we study the Bible in its parts and in 
its unity, the more we shall see that its structure is 
organic, and not mechanical ; that is, that it is not put 
together like a machine, but is organized as the members 
of the human body are organized, by the power of the 
one life and spirit which animate every part. 



THE UKITY OF THE BIBLE. 25 

Upon careful study of the Word of God, it will be 
found to be a true development. From Genesis to 
Revelation there is a steady march and progress of truth. 
As the flower seed dropped into the ground begins to 
open and unroll itself, first into a little white and tender 
shoot J then into hardier stalk, branches, leaves, buds, 
flowers, with all the variety of parts — corona, stamen, 
petals, and leaves, exquisitely colored and delicately per- 
fumed, displaying a miracle of development ; so we 
may say of the Book of Genesis, it is the germ book of 
the Bible. 

1 am persuaded that the whole of the word of God 
lies hidden in Genesis, just as the flower lies hidden in 
the seed. It may be that in some parts it is hidden 
deeper even than the possibility of microscopic discov- 
ery ; but so also are many of the wonders and beauties 
of the flower, and yet we know they have all been un- 
folded from that little seed. Every truth concerning 
God and man is hinted at here. God as creator, as moral 
governor, as providence and as Saviour, is seen in this 
Book. Man in nature and in grace is brought before us 
—the law and the gospel are brought to view — in this 
Book. And so on and on as book after book was writ- 
ten, as institution and dispensation were brought out in 
clearer and sharper outline, and more minute detail, it 
was but the further unfolding and bringing out into 
fuller light the wonderful truths hinted at in Genesis. 

The progressive development of this revelation in the 
Bible, is, after all, a chief proof of its Divine origin — 
not only as to the whole, but as to each part or separate 
book. If we were reduced to one line of proof — which 
we are not — ^to establish the inspiration of the various 
books of the Bible, we would unhesitatingly take that 
which is to be found in the Bible itself. The Bible is 



26 ^'11^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK/' 

not a mechanism, but an organism — the same Divine 
Spirit breathing through and animating every part. It 
has no artificial members, no incongruous parts. There 
is not a single deformity or monstrosity about it. As 
we know the difference between the thumb of a human 
hand and that of a monkey, so by internal evidence we 
know that there are no human members in this Divine 
body. A peach graft will grow upon an apricot stock ; 
but it is quite easy to distinguish between the wood of 
the peach and the wood of the apricot into which it is 
grafted. The mysterious life shuttle that weaves a 
human body never weaves a monkey ; nor does the 
shuttle that weaves a monkey ever weave a man. 
ITeither does mere human thought weave books like 
those found in the Bible. 

The general pattern of the Bible is unlike that of any 
other book, ancient or modern ; and the closer the com- 
parison the more evident the organic difference. The 
various books making up the whole fifc into the Bible, as 
the stones and cedar beams quarried from the hills, hewn 
from the forests, and fashioned to the plan of the temple, 
went into the sacred edifice, each in the place designed 
for it. The proof that any stone, or beam, or peg be- 
longed to the temple was found in the fact that there 
was a place for it in the building, and that it fitted into 
that place. So of the various books of the Bible — they 
fit. More than that, they all bear the mark of their 
Divine Author. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE BIBLE AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS. 

Incomparable superiority of the Bible — An inquirer — The Vedas and 
Zend-Avesta — A statement of truth downward from God to man — 
The majesty and authority of the biblical style — Human argumen- 
tation — Job and his friends — Not unscientific or unphilosophic 
— Nothing to fear from current scientific scepticism— Sceptical 
science becoming less haughty. 

The most casual reader of the Bible, if he have any 
serious thoughtfulness of mind, must remark its unique 
and extraordinary character, differing as it does in its 
structure and matter, its spirit and style, from all other 
books. Side by side the best and most celebrated of 
them, its incomparable superiority is almost instantly 
recognized. Here and there there have been found 
passages from other books that have been thought to 
compare favorably with some of the subhme teachings 
of the Bible. But it has been remarked that even 
when precepts and moral teachings similar to or identical 
with those of either earlier or later ancients are found 
in the Bible, especially in the teachings of Jesus, they 
" receive a different setting, and a more heavenly light 
is in them. A diamond in a dark or dimly lighted room 
is not the same thing as a diamond in the track of a sun- 
beam." ^ 

The simplicity and naturalness of the Bible are most 
striking. Where else can be found such graphic pictures 



* Newman Smythe. 



28 ^^IK THE TOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

of paternal and domestic life ? The straightforward de- 
lineation of its most conspicuous characters ; its record 
of the sins of God's people with the same impartial pen 
as is used for the setting forth of their virtues ; its 
ij j lofty moral tone ; its sublimity of thought ; as well as 

" its superhuman authority — all bespeak its unique char- 

acter. For like the Master, of whom it is the constant 
and consistent witness, its words are with authority. It 
never speculates or halts in its teaching, but drives 
straight to the mark in its ever-recurring " Thus saith 
the Lord," in the Old Testament, and in the " Yerily, 
verily, I say unto you" of the Master. 

I met a young man some months ago in the inquiry- 
room in Hartford, and 1 said to him, as to others whom 
I met there nightly, " Well, my young friend, are you a 
Christian ?" He replied, " I am not ; but 1 am an in- 
quirer after truth." " What is your trouble ?" 1 asked. 
" Why," said he, " I do not know which Bible to be- 
lieve, or whether they are all alike to be believed, each 
one for what it is worth." " What do you mean ?" I 
replied : ^' I do not understand you. There is hut one 
Bible." " Oh, yes, there are many Bibles. There are 
the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta and the Koran, but I do 
not count much upon the Koran ; the others, however, 
are very ancient books, and contain the religion of the 
larger part of the inhabitants of the earth." 

1 found he had been reading Mr. Max Miiller's studies 
in comparative religions, and was much taken up with the 
idea that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, was 
only a Jewish version of the " more ancient " religions 
of Aryan races. I was at first disposed to ignore his 
difficulties and pass him by, but on second thought I 
felt it to be my duty to try and meet them. 

Since then I have found a great many persons who 



THE BIBLE AI^D OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS. 29 

while they are in no sense students or scholars, have 
read some book or magazine article by which they have 
been inoculated with the thought that the Bible is only 
one of many equally ancient and equally trustworthy 
religious books. And so it may be well just here to have 
our attention called to the difference between the Bible 
and these two of the more famous books. 

The Vedas are a very ancient collection of sacred 
hymns addressed to the fancied gods of nature, and 
make no pretension to be in any sense a revelation. 
They are the outpourings of the natural religious senti- 
ment. The Zend-Avesta is an ancient speoulation into 
the origin of things. It does not pretend to be revela- 
tion of the truth, but only a human effort to account for 
and explain things that are seen. But the Bible differs 
from both in a most marked manner. The Bible is the 
revelation of God^ and the history of creation : it de- 
clares the origin of things and of man, showing God to 
be the creator and author of all, and states our relation, 
not to nature, but to Him. 

Now the difference between a speculation and a reve- 
lation is this : One is an effort of the human mind to ac- 
count for things seen, and so make discovery of the 
things that are not seen ; an effort to leap from the earth 
outward and upward into the presence and mystery of 
the unseen and eternal. The other is a positive statement 
of the truth out and downward from God to man. We 
notice that the Bible, when speaking of God, never gives 
an opinion^ never speculates. It always, in simple and 
majestic measure, declares — as in the opening sentence 
of the Bible, '' In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth." That is so utterly different, both in 
matter and manner, from any sentence ever framed by 
philosopher or religious speculator, that it almost goes 



30 ^^li^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'^ 

without saying that these could not have been the words 
of man ; that they are the words of God spoken by man 
as he was moved of God to speak, in order that man 
might have the truthy and have it at once and simply, 
in a single breath. 

The majestic sweep of the first chapter of Genesis is 
so great, packing away in a compass hardly greater 
than one page of this little book the entire account of the 
creation of the world and all things therein, that on its 
face it bears the stamp of God rather than man. Think, 
if you can, of any human philosopher dashing off with 
a few bold strokes of his pen such an account of the 
creation. 

If you want to read the finest specimen of human 
speculation and argumentation on record, turn to the 
divinely preserved debate between Job and his three 
friends recorded in the Book of Job (ii. — xxxi.). How 
the battle between Job and his three friends rages 
through those thirty chapters, until, weary with the con- 
flict, they give over their arguments, drawn from ob- 
servation, tradition, and law. Nothing was settled, 
until, exhausted, they all sat face to face defiant and 
unconvinced each by the other. Then it was that Elihu 
(xxxii.), moved by inspiration, set the truth before them 
all. The result was that they were dumb {v. 15), for 
they had but '' darkened counsel by words without 
knowledge" (xxxviii. 2) ; and Job was humbled before 
God, saying, " Behold, I am vile : what shall I say unto 
Thee ? 1 will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have 
I spoken ; but I will not answer : yea, twice ; but I 
will proceed no further" (xl. 4, 5). This book is a 
striking and remarkable illustration of the difference be- 
tween speculation and revelation. And as it is supposed 
that the Book of Job is the most ancient book in the 



THE BIBLE Al^D OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS. 31 

Bible, if not in the world, this fact alone would go far 
to clear np the perplexity that exists in the minds of 
some as to their comparative worth and the trne relation 
existing between ancient writings and the Bible. 

Still another point. Many, especially among the 
younger and* partly educated portions of every commu- 
nity, are troubled with what they term the scientific diffi- 
culties of the Bible. We can only touch upon this point. 
Because the Bible is not a speculation as to the origin 
of things, but an authoritative statement of the truth 
from God to man, it does not follow that its revealed 
truth is unphilosophical. And so, because the Bible 
does not contain a scientific account of creation, and is 
not written in the terms of the modern scientist, it does 
not follow that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate in 
its statements. It must be borne in mind that the Bible 
was written ages before the birth of the modern sciences. 
And had it been written in scientific language it would 
have been to the people then living, and even to the 
great mass of people now living, an utterly unintelligible 
book — as most scientific books are now, unintelligible 
except to the educated few. 

There can be no greater mistake than to suppose, for 
an instant, that any well-ascertained fact of science has 
yet been shown to be in conflict with the scriptural 
account of creation. We are aware that the assertion to 
this effect is often made ; but such assertions have never 
been proved. Indeed, it is becoming more evident 
every day that science and revelation are drawing nearer 
together ; that is — that science is drawing nearer, in her 
domain, to the truth as revealed in the Word of God. 
But were this not so, and were it shown that there was 
a real and thoroughly demonstrated error in the Bible 
account of creation, so that we must needs honestly give 



32 ^^IJSr THE YOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

np Moses and the Bible, to whom should we go for the 
truth ? We might adapt the words of Joshua (xxiv. 15) 
and say, '^ And if it seem evil unto you to believe the 
Bible, choose ye this day whom ye will believe, whether 
the pantheistic or materiahstic philosophers who specu- 
lated before the rise of modern science, or the atheistic, 
theistic or agnostic scientists ;" for there be some who 
say science teaches there is no God ; and some who say 
there must be a God ; and others who say we cannot 
know if there be a God. Certainly science is at present 
on a wide sea of discovery in many boats, guided, each 
boat, by the theory of its particular occupant. 

Two things are certain : (1.) Neither philosophy nor 
science has succeeded thus far in impeaching the accu- 
racy of the Bible statement. (2.) They have as yet 
reached no common ground of agreement among them- 
selves. So that the Christian need not, as yet (and I am 
stire he never will), be in any fear from tlie assaults of 
the students of science. It is, indeed, no new experi- 
ence for the Bible to meet the shock of scepticism. For 
centuries it has been the object of attack, always fierce 
and relentless ; and for centuries it has endured and 
beaten back its assailants. As a granite rock in the sea 
meets and hurls back into the ocean the fierce waves 
that roll in upon it, so the Bible has met and beaten 
back by the power of its immovable and eternal truth 
all its assailants. Like a rock in the sea rooted in a 
great submarine but unseen formation, it has sometimes 
seemed to be overwhelmed by the surging fury of the 
waves ; but it has ever emerged unshaken and trium- 
phant : the only effect has been to sweep away some 
human theological structure or false system of inter- 
pretation built upon it, but not growing out of it. 

In this connection it is well to bear in mind that seep- 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS. 33 

tical scientists have of late become far less hanglity in 
their criticisms of the Bible, and far more humble in 
their estimate of their own knowledge (as it becomes 
every student, whether of science or theology, to be) ; 
for says an eminent scientific writer on the rights and 
duties of science : ^^ It becomes science to confess with 
much humility how far it falls short of the full compre- 
hension of nature ; and to abstain conscientiously from 
premature conclusions. The rapid progress of discovery 
in recent times only makes more plain to us the fact that 
the extension of our knowledge implies the extension of 
OUT ignorance ; that everywhere the progress of our 
knowledge leads us to unsolvable mysteries. It would 
be easy to furnish illustrations from every branch of sci- 
ence ; but geology and biology are very fertile in them. " 
It has seemed due to many honest but uninformed 
minds, especially among the young, to say so much by 
way of recognition of their new-found difficulties, and 
also by way of indicating the outline of answer. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE BIBLE NOT A SCIENTIFIC, BUT A RELIGIOUS BOOK. 

Not intended to inform the scientific mind, but to instruct the re- 
ligious intelligence of man, and meet the wants of the religious 
nature — Stands over against our soul hunger and thirst, demon- 
strated by religious experience — It is self-proving, harmonizing 
with highest reason — Its truth revealed to faith, not to human wis- 
dom. 

The Bible is not a scientific, but a religious book, in- 
tended not to inform the scientific and philosophic under- 
standing, but to instruct the religious intelligence of man 
in those things which make for the life that now is, and 
that which is to come (1 Tim. iv. 8). What a blessed 
fact it is that we thirsty mortals can drink a glass of 
pure water and quench our burning thirst, without having 
to know the chemical analysis of water, or how it was 
originally created. We are thirsty beings ; and if our 
thirst is not slaked we shall die. Meantime water is pro- 
vided : it is offered to us, and we are told that it will 
slake our thirst, that it was provided in nature for that 
very purpose ; and without stopping to have it analyzed, 
we drink it and live. We thus experimentally prove 
it to be water, and that all that was claimed for it is 
true. 

We likewise are religious beings, and if we do not find 
truth, and love, and happiness, and regeneration, and 
eternal life, and resurrection, we shall die and perish. 
God's Word is brought to us ; it contains truths, or at 
least statements and promises, that stand over against 



THE BIBLE NOT SCIENTIFIC. 35 

these spiritual hungeringsand thirstings, just as food and 
drink stand over against the hunger and thirst of the 
body. By faith we take hold of these promises, and the 
hunger and thirst of our souls are satisfied. We know 
the truth of the Bible, therefore, not by metaphysical 
or intellectual demonstration, but by experimental proof, 
as real in the sphere of our religious nature as scientific 
demonstration is real in the realm of matter. 

Two and two make four ; that is mathematics : hy- 
drogen and oxygen in certain proportions make water ; 
that is science : Christ and Him crucified is the power 
and wisdom of God for salvation ; that is revelation. 
But how do you know ? Put two and two together, and 
you have four ; count and see. Put hydrogen and oxy- 
gen together, and you have water; taste and prove. 
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved : believe, and thou shalt know. The last is as 
clear a demonstration as the others. 

As a practical necessity we do not require to know 
the mysteries involved in our own being, and in all the 
provisions of nature made for our well-being on the 
earth. It is well to understand the chemistry of food 
and drink ; but it would not only be unwise, but might 
be fatal, for us to postpone eating and drinking until 
we had mastered the chemistry. And so again we may 
derive great satisfaction and benefit in discovering a 
philosophical and scientific adjustment of revelation ; 
but we would be consummately foohsh if we refused to 
believe — and thus practically to demonstrate, by believ- 
ing — the truth of God's Word, until we had found the 
philosophical. and scientific adjustment of it. 

Our Lord said when He was in the world, " I thank 
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and eartji, because Thou 
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 



36 ^'IN THE YOLtJME OF THE BOOK." 

hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt. xi. 25). God does 
not reveal Himself and his truth to the wisdom of the 
philosopher or to the prudence of the scientist ; but He 
is easilj^ found by childlike faith. " For after that in 
the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, 
it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save 
them that believe. For the Jews (the scientists) require 
a sign, and the Greeks (the philosophers) seek after wis- 
dom ; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a 
stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but 
unto them which are called (believers), both Jews and 
Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of 
God. . . . Not in enticing words of man's wisdom, 
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power : that 
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God " (1 Cor. i. 21 — 24 ; ii. 4, 5, et 
seq.). 

While philosophers and scientists have been disputing 
and treading over and over again the dreary paths of pan- 
theism and materialism, trying to put God in a crucible 
or under a microscope, millions of souls in the ages past, 
and thousands in the daily present, have been and are 
finding God and Christ and salvation, to the joy and re- 
joicing of their souls ; living in the power of an endless 
life even here ; some meeting death triumphantly even 
at the stake, and others peacefully passing into the pres- 
ence of Him whom, having not seen on earth, they have 
yet known by faith and the power of liis presence in 
them. 

The engineers who directed the work of the Hoosac 
Tunnel, started two gangs of men from opposite sides of 
the mountain. So accurate was their survey that when 
they met midway in the mountain, the walls of the ex- 
cavations approaching from the different starting points 



THE BIBLE KOT SCIENTIFIC. 37 

joined witliin less than an inch. The practical working 
of the bore proved the scientific accuracy of the survej^. 
Man, starting from the side of his hnman spiritual need 
reaching out and upward toward God, is met by the 
revelation in Christ coming out and downward from 
God, a revelation which exactly fits and covers his need. 
This perfect match between the human need and the 
heavenly supply is the perfect proof of the Divine origin 
of the Bible. Just as color is intuitive to sight, harmony 
to the musical sense, beauty to the sense of the beauti- 
ful, so is God's Word intuitive to the spiritual conscious- 
ness. Coleridge was wont to say : ^' I know the Bible is 
true, because it finds me." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BIBLE AN IN^SPIEED BOOK. 

The Bible not of human origin —Holy men of old — Various theories 
of Inspiration — A. practical view — Does not extend to translations 
— Does not cover " errors crept in unawares" — Such errors do not 
destroy or invalidate the inspiration of the Bible — Popular or 
learned criticism should not shake our minds — Inspiration covers 
the historical records — Great variety of contents in the Bible — The 
record of sin and sinful action not a part of the moral teaching of 
the Bible — Must distinguish between the record of human opinions 
and authoritative Divine instruction — Matter of inspiration of rela- 
tive importance — Difference between inspiration and revelation. 

The Bible is not of human origin, though written by 
human hands. Its truths and teachings came through 
human hearts and heads, as well as oitt of them. The 
inspired men who wrote the Bible did not write by their 
own will ; that is, their own thoughts and their own will 
were never ^'the rule or the reason" why any of the 
things which they wrote were written. But they wrote 
the thoughts and the words which were given them by 
the Holy Spirit, as says Paul of his writings and preach- 
ing : " We speak, not in words which man's wisdom 
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (1 Cor. 
ii. 13). 

It is true, then, that it was written by men : but 
" holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost '' (2 Pet. i. 21), the " Spirit of Christ which was 
in them" (1 Pet. i. 11), signifying the truth concerning 
things and men and actions, in their relation to God ; 



THE BIBLE A2^ INSPIBED BOOK. 39 

testifying to the world the will and law of God, and 
making plain all things appertaining to man and his sal- 
vation. The Bible, therefore, when it speaks for God 
— as in its " Thus saith the Lord " — is an infallible and 
unchangeable declaration of truthy not to be modified by 
adding to or taking therefrom in any degree or sense. 

There are many theories of inspiration ; but it is not 
necessary for the practical purpose of the Christian to 
have definitely fixed in his mind any one of the many 
nice distinctions that wise and learned men have made 
in declaring or teaching their various theories. All de- 
vout men agree that the sitbstance of revelation is the 
expression of the thoughts and will of God ; that the 
historical records of the doings and sayings of men, pre- 
served in the Bible, are truthful records. Others go 
farther, and hold that not only is the substance of the 
Bible inspired, but that the language, even the very 
words, the grammatical structure, the style and mode of 
expression, were all immediately chosen and directed by 
the Holy Spirit ; that the writers were mere amanuenses, 
and wrote under the dictation of the Spirit. Some hold 
that they were conscious of this dictation when they 
wrote and spoke ; and others that, while they were in- 
fallibly moved to speak and write the very words, they 
were not conscious of anything farther than that the 
Spirit of God was upon them, and that they spake in 
their own words, not knowing that they were being im- 
pelled to the choice of them. 

Some hold that the degree of inspiration was variable 
in the different writers, and according to the matter 
they had in hand ; that, therefore, while some parts of 
the Bible are absolutely inspired, other parts of it — espe- 
cially its historical portions — were written by good men 
who were largely under the influence of the Spirit, and 



40 ^*IX THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

yet not so dominated by Him that they were infallible 
in their writings ; and that, therefore, we must not ac- 
cept many of the historical records as being literally 
true ; but that we must read the Bible as a whole, and 
come to such conclusions of truth as best we may. But 
this is so vague a theory that it may be counted as out- 
side the pale of the inspiration theories. It seems to us, 
to a great extent, to be a waste of time to try to settle 
all the nice points of the multitudinous theories. It is 
enough for us to know that these Scriptures, the histori- 
cal records and all, come to us with God's seal affixed to 
them ; that they are final in all matters of faith and 
practice ; that they declare the will of God to us, and 
are his authoritative statements. 

Let us bear in mind that there is a vast difference be- 
tween a fact and the theory of a fact. Most of our 
troubles grow not out of the facts in the case, but out of 
the theories concerning the facts. For instance, we all 
agree that Christ died for our sins ; that by his death 
He made atonement for us ; and that we are saved by, 
and on account of, that Sacrifice and the offering of 
Himself up to God. We agree upon the fact, but there 
are almost as many theories of the atonement as there are 
men who have written upon it. We do not say that we 
ought not to inquire how it is that we are saved by 
Him, or in what sense '^ He was made sin for us," or 
^' bore our sins ;" but we say, practically, it is enough 
for us to know that ' ' He died for our sins, according to 
the Scriptures ; that He was buried ; and that He rose 
again, according to the Scriptures ;" and that we are 
saved by this fact of his death, burial, and resurrection. 
(1 Cor. XV. 1—4.) 

Whatever the theory of the fact may be, lay hold on 
the fact that his death is that on account of which God 



THE BIBLE AK INSPIRED BOOK. 41 

can and does save sinners, and without which, or apart 
from which. He does not and cannot save them. There- 
fore let us root our minds and hearts in the great essen- 
tial facts of the Bible, and leave them open for such 
further light as may shine in from the Word and Spirit 
of God enabling us to form a correct theory. 

It is the truth^ and not the theory of the truth, that 
we want. The '^ new birth" is a great fact as taught by 
our Saviour first to Nicodemus (John iii.). I may have 
my theory as to Regeneration, and it may differ somewhat 
from yours ; and yet we both agree as to the fact, and 
by his grace we both enjoy the experience of it. Let 
us agree there, and both rejoice together, that being in 
Christ Jesus we have become new creatures (2 Cor. v. 
17). If I have dwelt long on the difference between 
truth and the theories of truth, it is because I think it a 
most important distinction to be kept in mind ; and be- 
cause I am sure that much precious time and many 
golden opportunities of possessing truth are wasted and 
lost in a vain and useless debate about theories, No 
doubt many souls miss salvation by grasping at theories, 
instead of being saved by laying hold of the saving 
fact. 

Let us not fall into the mistake of believing that inspi- 
ration, in its strict biblical sense, extends to the English 
authorized version or any other translation of the Bible. 
We must evermore rejoice in the belief that the trans- 
lators who gave us our beautiful and precious English 
version were greatly strengthened and guided by the 
Holy Spirit ; but that they were in any sense infallible 
in the great work no one pretends to believe. If it is 
lawful to make such a supposition, we do not hesitate to 
say that were our Lord on earth to-day, in our country, 
He would quote from the authorized English translation 



42 ^*'IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

as He did in the days of liis earthly ministry from the 
Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament. And 
this we say in the face' of the evident instances in which 
our translators were misled in their renderings, and pos- 
sibly in not a few instances biassed in their work by the- 
ological opinions and ecclesiastical predilections. Be- 
sides, their work was more or less — less rather than more 
— defective through lack of the earliest and best authen- 
ticated manuscripts, which recent discoveries and riper 
scholarship have brought to light. So evident are these 
facts in connection with our present English version, that 
all Christendom has united in preparing a new transla- 
tion, of which the New Testament portion has already 
appeared. 

In affirming the inspiration of the Bible as a whole, 
we do not claim, that even the best and most ancient 
text is absolutely free from possible errors crept in un- 
awares, and still lurking here and there, in historical 
record, holy experimental song, or subhme prophecy, or 
even in the recorded utterances of our Lord and his 
apostles. It is not surprising that trifling errors should 
have found their way into the sacred text during the 
centuries of its .transcription and transmission from 
Moses' day till now. But it does not therefore follow, 
that the Book as such is not the inspired and authorita- 
tive Word of God. A little dust of the ages ingrained 
Iq a pictured face by one of the old masters does not 
render it any the less genuine. A flaw in one of the 
pillars of St. Paul's does not make it any less the great 
work of Sir Christopher Wren, whose mortal remains 
lie entombed within its crypt. 

" lie who has once gained a [broad] view of the Bible, 
as the development of a course of history, itself guided 
and inspired by Jehovah, will not be disconcerted by 



THE BIBLE Al^ IN-SPIRED BOOK. 43 

the confused noise of the critics. His faith in the Word 
of God lies deeper than any difficulties and flaws upon 
the surface of the Bible. He will not be disturbed by 
seeing any theory of its [inspiration] or school-book in- 
fallibility broken to fragments under the repeated blows 
of modern investigation. The water of life will flow 
from the rock which the scholar strikes with his rod. 
He can wait without fear for a candid and thorough 
study of these sacred writings to determine, if possible, 
what parts are genuine, and what narratives, if any, are 
unhistorical. His belief in the Word of God, from 
generation to generation, does not depend upon the minor 
incidents of the biblical stories. It would not be de- 
stroyed or weakened, even though human tradition could 
be shown to have overgrown some parts of the sacred 
history — as the ivy creeping up the walls of the church 
does not loosen its ancient stones. . . . He is above 
the din of the critics' hammer, and he is not troubled 
henceforth by the small dust of biblical criticism. ... 
The person who throws in our faces what we have just 
characterized as the small dust of biblical criticism, and 
asks us what has become of the Word of God, resembles 
the man who should toss a spade full of sand, scraped 
from the surface of the rock, into the air, and ask us, as 
we rub our eyes, what has become of the world. It is 
still beneath us as of old, though our eyes may be too 
full of dust to see where we stand. After all the work 
of the critics the Bible remains, the great, sublime, en- 
during work of the Eternal, who loves righteousness and 
hates iniquity. If only, however, we are allowed to 
plant our feet quietly on the everlasting rock, atid are 
not compelled by a mistaken zeal to keep every grain of 
sand, to hold fast to any tradition of men which may 
have accumulated upon the surface of revelation, and 



44 '^11^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

which, possibly, the rising winds of controversy may 
drive away. " "^ 

Let us not be misled, or even shaken in onr minds, by 
the hypercritical cavils of men who say. Are you sure 
that every word of your Bible is true ? — are you quite 
sure that there are no uninspired records between the 
covers ? We need only keep to the proposition that the 
Bible as a whole book is an inspired volume, containing 
a true record of a long historical development through 
which the Word of God came to man — first, at sundry 
times and in divers manners, as God spake to the fathers 
by the prophets, and in these last days by his Son, whom 
He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He 
made the worlds, who was in the beginning with God 
and was God, the very brightness of his glory and the 
express image of his person. (Heb. i. 1 — 3 ; John i. 
1 — 3), reveahng Himself and his eternal purpose of 
grace toward a sinful world. 

When speaking of the inspiration of Old Testament 
narrative or history, we do not mean that the actors in 
the history were inspired, only that the historians were 
guided by the Holy Spirit in recording the acts and 
events. In other words, the record is an inspired one — 
was not written as ordinary histories were written, on 
insufficient data, and more or less colored by the preju- 
dices of the historians. The record of events and of the 
actions and speech of men, good and bad, as that record 
appears on the sacred pages of the Bible, was written 
under the superintendence of the Spirit of Truth, and is 
so far forth historically reliable. 

We note the great variety of contents in the Biblical 
records. Moses has given us an account of the creation, 



* Old Faiths in New Light. 



THE BIBLE AN INSPIRED BOOK. 45 

brief and succinct ; designed not so much to show Jiow 
the world, and man, and all that therein is, came into 
existence, as to show and declare God's authorship of 
them, and their relation to Him. Thus we have an ac- 
count of the origin of the material universe and of the 
human species ; the appearance of sin and death ; of 
certain institutions, such as the Sabbath and marriage ; 
of the races and early nations. This early history is not 
necessarily a scientifio account of the origin of things, 
not a philosophical theory of these things, but a revela- 
tion of the truth concerning them from God downward 
to us. 

Then we have a record of the doings of certain men 
and the movement of the races ; a record of the wicked- 
ness of man ; of his detraction by the flood ; of the sal- 
vation of Noah and his family ; of the call of Abraham, 
and the rise of the Jewish race, and the formation of the 
nation ; of the poHtical and religious historj of the Jews ; 
of their relation to God and the nations around them ; 
of God's dealing with them, both in wrath and mercy. 
We have the recorded actions and speeches of both good 
and bad men ; a faithful history of God's chosen peo- 
ple ; of the virtues and vices of those whom He called 
his own. But let us remember that this record was not 
merely for the purpose of preserving or making histori- 
cal mention, but to show God's connection with human 
history, and how all human actions stand in relation to 
Him ; not for the purpose of preserving human thought 
and speculations, but to declare the truth from God's 
standpoint. 

Then we have a record of the Holy Law of God and of 
his eternal purpose of grace ; first dimly revealed in 
dark saying, as in the first promise of salvation spoken 
in the hearing of Adam, '^ I will put enmity between 



46 ^'IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thon shalt bruise his 
heel " (Gen. iii. 15) ; and then in types and shadows 
gradually unfolded and becoming more and more distinct 
— as interpreted by the institutions of permanent wor- 
ship among the Hebrews, the experimental holy Song of 
David and others, and the magnificent prophetic utter- 
ances of the holy seers ; until He came in the fulness of 
time, born of a woman and made under the law (Gal. iv. 
4), ^^ of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did 
write" (John i. 45 ; Luke xxiv. 2Y). 

The inspired record of sin and sinful actions is no part 
of the moral teaching of the Bible. The Spirit of God 
may cause the lie of a man or the wickedness of a man 
to be faithfullv recorded, as He has recorded the sins of 
his people as well as those of his enemies ; but it does 
not follow that, because the record is inspired, God ap- 
proved or sanctioned the sins He caused to be recorded. 
We have been surprised to find not a few intelligent peo- 
ple perplexed on this point, supposing that the record of 
a man's sin cannot be inspired, hecause it is the record of 
sin / but it seems to us that a moment's attentive thought 
will dissipate such a difficulty. 

In this connection we may observe that there are many 
things in the Bible recorded by inspiration not intended 
to convey instruction as coming from God, except in an 
incidental and secondary sense, in which, indeed, '' all 
Scriptures given by inspiration are profitable." For ex- 
ample, a large part of the Book of Job is made up of 
the human teachings and speculations of Job and his 
three friends ; but because their opinions and reasonings 
have been put on record by the Holy Spirit,, we are not, 
therefore, to accept them as of divine authority. Again, 
it is written in the Bible, " There is no God " (Ps. liii. 



THE BIBLE AN I2^SPIRED BOOK. 47 

1) ; but that is the record of what " the fool hath said," 
not of what God hath said. So, in reading the Bible, 
we must discriminate between what God says and what 
man says (of which a record, for wise reasons, has 
been preserved). The immoralities of bad and unsancti- 
fied men (the record of which is preserved in the Bible) 
must not be confounded with the moral teachings of 
God's Word. Loose popular misapprehension on this 
point seems to justify me in saying so much. 

Bear in mind, also, that the contents of the Bible are 
of relative importance. For example, no one can doubt 
for a moment that the third chapter of John's Gospel, 
or the account of the birth, death, and resurrection of 
Christ, is of infinitely more importance to us than the 
long list of genealogies recorded in the Chronicles ; yet 
it does not follow that the genealogies were written 
under an inspiration differing in kinder degree from that 
which guided John in writing his Gospel, any more than 
it follows that because a crawling worm is of less impor- 
tance in the creation than the man made in the image of 
God, it is therefore any less the creature of God. "All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God " (2 Tim. iii. 16). 

Lotus remember the difference between inspiration 
and revelation. For example, historical facts are not rev- 
elation, strictly speaking. By revelation, we under- 
stand that discovery of things by means of the sacred 
Scriptures that we could not otherwise know, either 
through the testimony of the senses, or conscience, or 
mere reason. That sin is sinful is not a revelation, for 
man knows that without the Bible. His conscience tells 
him that. The revelation consists in the setting of sin 
and human actions in the light of the great white throne, 
thus letting us see them as God estimates and judges 
them. 



48 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

On tlie other hand, there are many things that conld 
only have been known by a direct revelation. We can 
only know what the mind of God is toward a sinful 
creature by a revelation of that mind. '' For who hath 
known the mind of the Lord ?" (Rom. xi. 34). In fact, 
to Tcnow God at all, we must have a revelation. '' For 
who by searching can find out God ?" (Job xi. 1). 
" ISTo man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to 
whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him" (Matt. xi. 27). 
We can only know whether there be forgiveness with 
God by revelation (Ps. cxxx. 4 ; Exod. xxxiv. 7 ; Dan. 
ix. 9 ; 1 John i. 9). Only by revelation can we know 
the method of the divine grace (Rom. i. 17). Indeed, 
all the unseen and eternal things which most deeply con- 
cern us are matters of pure revelation (1 Cor. xi. 9, 10). 
But for the revelation which God has given us by His 
Son Jesus Christ, what could we know of heaven or 
hell, of the state of the dead, of life and immortality, or 
of any of the things that '' must shortly come to pass" ? 
(Rev. i. 1 ; xxii. 6). It is well to remember that the 
current and popular opinions held and advanced by men 
on all these great questions are modified imaginings, 
drawn from the revelation God has made in his word. 
Therefore, instead of listening to what man may say, or 
caring for what may be any man's opinion, let us go 
direct to the Word of God and get knowledge that is 
able to make us wise unto salvation (2 Tim. ill. 15). 



CHAPTER Y. 

CHRIST AND THE SCRIPTURES. 

Christ and the Scriptures inseparable— He is the culmination of Rev- 
elation — The Bible testifies of Christ — Christ endorses the Script- 
ures — Christ the Key with which to unlock the Bible. 

Christ and the Scriptures are inseparable — Revelation 
culminates in Him. Without Him the Bible would be 
a meaningless book ; unintelligible in its history, in its 
types and ceremonials, and in its prophecy. '^ Abraham 
rejoiced to see his day ; and he saw it and was glad" 
(John viii. 56 ; Gen. xxii. 13, 14). Jacob looked down 
the ages, and saw in Him that '' Shiloh, unto whom the 
gathering of the people should be" (Gen. xUx. 10). 
Moses saw in Him the Prophet whom the Lord God 
would raise up like unto him from among his brethren, 
to whom they were to give ear (Deut. xviii. 15 — 18). 
David sang his praise in a score of psalms ; his crucified 
Lord in the twenty-second ; his Shepherd going with him 
through the valley of the shadow of death in the twenty- 
third ; his glorious risen and ascended King passing into 
the everlasting gates, in the twenty-fourth. Isaiah saw 
Him the Child born, the Son given, whose name was 
Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, Everlasting 
Father, and Prince of Peace (ix. 6) ; the sure founda- 
tion-stone laid in Zion, tried and precious (xxviii. 16) ; 
and the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, who 
was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our 
iniquities, bearing the chastisement of our peace, and 



50 *^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

healing ns with his stripes (Hii. 5). Daniel saw Him 
^' the stone cut out of the mountain," breaking in pieces 
tlie iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, of 
JS'ebuchadnezzar's image ; and the Ancient of Days, like 
unto the Son of Man, taking and possessing the king- 
doms of all the earth (Dan. ii. and vii.). Malachi be- 
held Him the Lord of the covenant coming as a Refiner 
and Fuller, purifying the sons of Levi and purging them 
as gold (Mai. iii.). In a word. He is the burden of all 
Scriptures, as He Himself saith : " All things concern- 
ing Me were written in the law of Moses, and in the 
prophets, and in the psalms" (Luke xxiv. 44). Indeed, 
should we lose- the New Testament life of our Lord it 
would be possible to reconstruct it from the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures. 

From the time when God announced in the Garden of 
Eden that the seed of the woman should bruise the ser- 
pent's head (Gen. iii. 15), until the time when John 
cried, in response to the apocalyptic vision, " Even so 
come. Lord Jesus' ' (Rev. xxii. 20), He is seen to be the 
great central fact and figure of the Book. As the sun 
casts a shadow before an advancing body, so Jesus, who 
was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, 
'' whose goings forth have been from everlasting" (Mic. 
V. 2), cast the long line of typical and ceremonial shadows 
before Him. 

These things of the ceremonial law, says the Apostle, 
were " the shadow of good things to come. " Adam, out 
of whose side and from whose substance a bride for him 
was taken and made, is but a type of Him out of whose 
wounded side and from whose divine nature, the re- 
deemed Church, the Lamb's wife, is taken (Eph. v. 
30 — 32). Abel, slain by Cain, tells us of the Good Shep- 
herd slain for us, whose " blood speaketh better things 



CHRIST AKD THE SCRIPTURES. 51 

than that of Abel" (Heb. xii. 24). Enoch points to 
Him who hath ascended on high, giving the resurrec- 
tion side, lacking in typical Abel ; and JSToah, that man 
of faith who prepared an ark for the condemnation and 
the salvation of the world, points to Him on account of 
whose righteousness we may enter in and be saved. The 
burning bush was a type of the incarnation, the eternal 
flame of Godhead dwelling in the bush of human nature, 
and not consuming it, out of which God announced his 
incarnate name — I AM. For in after-days do we not 
hear Him ''who came down" and dwelt in human 
nature, filling up that mysterious name, saying, '' I AM 
the light of the world ; I AM the way ; I AM the door ; 
I AM the bread of life ; 1 AM the good shepherd ; I 
AM the true vine ; I AM the resurrection and the life ; 
I AM the bright and morning star ; I AM the first and 
last ; before Abraham was, I AM ; I AM Jesus" ? 
Surely all this is too plain to need argument or further 
proof. 

The lamb of Egypt tells us of Christ, our true Pass- 
over, who is sacrificed for us (1 Cor. v. 7). Moses and 
Aaron point to the Apostle and High-priest of our pro- 
fession (Heb. iii. 1). The falling manna in the wilder- 
ness was but the promise of that true bread which 
Cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof 
and not die (John vi. 50) ; and the smitten rock in the 
wilderness, that gave drink to the children of Israel, was 
but the type of Him who in the fulness of time was 
smitten for us. '' That Kock was Christ ' ' (1 Cor. x. 4). 
' But this point may be summed up in the Master's own 
words, when He says of the Scriptures, '' they are they 
that testify of Me" (John v. 39). Toward Him all the 
lines of ancient history converge : from Him all lines of 
modern history and thought diverge. All the old Testa- 



52 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK, 



J9 



ment saints looked forward to Him, as did Abraham, 
wlio rejoiced to see his day, and was glad (John viii. 56). 
The New Testament saints, and all who have followed, 
look back to Him and his finished work, and also rejoice. 
In all the Word of God there is not a page that does not 
testify of Him. 

Mr. Moody tells of a visit to Prang's chromo establish- 
ment in Boston. Mr. Prang showed him a stone, on 
which was laid the color for making the first impression 
toward producing the portrait of a distinguished public 
man : but he could see only the faintest possible line of 
tinting. The next stone that the paper was submitted to, 
deepened the color a little, but still no trace of the man's 
face was visible. Again and again was the sheet passed 
over successive stones, until at last the outlines of a 
man's face were dimly discerned. Finally, after some 
twenty impressions, from as many different stones, were 
taken upon the paper, the portrait of the distinguished 
man stood forth so perfectly that it seemed only to lack 
the power of speech to make it living. 

Thus it is with Christ in the Scri]3tures, especially in 
the Old Testament. Many persons— even many who 
knov) Christ — read rapidly through and over the pages of 
the Book, and declare that they do not see Christ in 
them. Well, read it again and again ; look a little more 
intently upon those sacred pages ; draw a little nearer 
into the light which the Holy Spirit gives to them that 
ask Him ; read it on your knees, calling upon God to 
open your eyes that you may see wonderful things out 
of his law ; and presently the beauteous, glorious face of 
Him whom your soul loveth will shine forth upon 
you. Sometimes you will see that wondrous face in 
deep shadow, marred more than the face of any man ; 
and again He will seem fair as the lily of the valley, 



CHRIST AND THE SCRIPTURES. 53 

and his face will shine above the brightness of the 
sun. 

On the other hand Christ is the chief witness to the 
truth of the Old Testament Scriptures. Their words 
were constantly in his mouth ; and to them He con- 
stantly appealed, as having witnessed to Him (John i. 
45, V. 39 ; Luke xxiv. 25—27, M— 47). He did not 
treat them as myths, but as veritable record of* facts, 
persons, and events. All in them was real to Him, as 
He spoke of and appealed to them. It is not without 
interest that many of the events recorded in; the Old 
Testament that are most commonly treated as mythical 
and utterly unimportant as matters of history are by 
Christ appealed to as historical facts. For instance, 
upon entering upon his public ministry He suffered 
Himself to be introduced as " the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world" (John i. 29). By 
this He endorsed that most remarkable portion of the 
book of Exodus relating to the slaying of the Paschal 
Lamb, the destruction of the first born, and the exodus 
of the Hebrews. 

Many doubt the Mosaic account of the Deluge in the 
days of Noah : but not so Christ ; for we hear Him dis- 
tinctly appealing to it to enforce the certainty of coming 
events, " As the days of Noah were, so shall the com- 
ing of the Son of Man be : for as in the days that were 
before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marry- 
ing and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah en- 
tered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came 
and took them all away : so shall also the coming of the 
Son of Man be" (Matt. xxiv. 37—39). In hke manner 
He bears testimony to the truth of the awful history of 
the destruction of Sodom — " Likewise also, as it was in 
the days of Lot : they did eat, they drank, they bought, 



54 '^11^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK/' 

they sold, they planted, they builded ; but the same day 
that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone 
from heaven, and destroyed them all " (Luke xvii. 
28, 29). 

Even so the salvation of the Israelites by means of 
the brazen serpent is unqualifiedly sanctioned : " For," 
says Christ, ''as Moses lifted up tlie serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up" 
(Joim iii. 14). And of the fall of the manna in the 
wilderness, by which the Israelites were miraculously fed 
for forty years, Christ says, '' I am the liv^ing bread 
which came down from heaven. . . , your fathers did 
eat manna, and are dead : he that eateth of this bread 
shall live for ever" (John vi. 61, 58). 

There are yet two other cases that many people think 
are quite too absurd to believe, and must at all hazards 
be given np, both of which our Lord has especially 
endorsed. One, the case of Lot's wife, w£o was turned 
into a pillar of salt, as she looked back upon Sodom ; 
the other, the case of Jonah who was swallowed by the 
great fish. In the one case He points a thrilling exhor- 
tation with " Kemember Lot's wife" (Luke xvii. 32) : 
in the other. He answered the Scribes and Pharisees 
who desired to see a sign from Him — " An evil and 
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and there 
shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet 
Jonas ; for as J onas was three days and three nights in 
the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days 
and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. xii. 
38—40). 

We are forced to the conclusion that our Lord believed 
these things to have actually occurred ; and before we 
can disbelieve them in any particular, we must discredit 
the testimony of Jesus Himself. Let us not then be 



CHRIST AKD THE SCRIPTURES. 55 

moved by what the critics say about the incredible and 
absurd myths of the Bible. Our Lord endorsed so many 
of them in the course of his public life, that we should 
have no difficulty in believing the rest. 

We m^j fairly conclude from the above that Jesus is 
at once the key to the interpretation of the Scriptures, 
and the guarantor of their truthfulness. We have no 
hesitancy in accepting the words which our Lord Jesus 
Christ spoke. We have seen how He by many words 
and expressions endorsed the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment, and made them his own : so we take the Bible ip 
its entirety with the same assurance that it is the Word 
of God, as if Jesus Christ Himself had written every 
word of it, instead of Moses, David, Isaiah, Ezra, Daniel, 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and James. 
It is all God's Word to us ; and we receive and interpret 
it, not on the authority of any tlieory, but simply as the 
Word of God. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOE THE BELIEVER. 

The words of life and salyation — ''Quick and powerful" — To ba 
received by faith — Its doctrines and promises to be experienced aa 
well as believed — The only authority in matters of faith and prac- 
tice — The absolute guarantee of our heavenly inheritance — The 
means of our spiritual culture — The Christian's armory, containing 
all needed weapons, both for offence and defence— A perfect guide 
to the Christian on pilgrimage through the world — The revelation 
of things to come. 



The Bible the only Booh that can make us wise unto 

Salvation, 

The Bible is not a book to be studied as we study 
geology and astronomy, merely to find out about the 
earth's formation and the structure of the universe ; but 
it is a book revealing truth, designed to bring us into 
living union with God. "We may study the physical 
sciences and get a fair knowledge of the facts and phe- 
nomena of the material universe ; but what difference 
does it make to us, as spiritual beings, whether the 
Copernican theory of the universe is true, or that of 
Ptolemy ? On the other hand, the eternal things of 
God's Word do so concern us. Scientific knowledge, 
and the words in which that knowledge is conveyed, 
have no power to change our characters, to make us bet- 
ter, or give us a living hope of a blessed immortality ; 
but the Word of God has in it a vital power, — it is 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 



57 



"quick and powerful, "-living, and full of divine 
energy (Heb. iv. 12), and when received with meekness 
into our understanding and heart, is able to save our 
souls (James i. 18-21), for it is the instrument of the 
Holy Spirit wherewith He accomplishes in us regenera- 
tion of character. _ 

The Word of God is a living seed, containing withm 
itself God's own life, which, when it is received into our 
hearts, springs up within us and "brings forth fruit 
after its kind ;" for Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of 
God is the living germ hidden in his written word. 
ICherefore it is written, " The words that I speak unto 
you, they are spirit and they are life" (John vi. 63) ; 
and so it is that " he that heareth my words," that is, 
receiveth them into an honest and good heart-heareth 
the word, and understandeth it— puts himself into per- 
sonal relation to it-" hath everlasting life'' Ql^ii. xin. 
23 • John V 24). Of no other book could such things 
as these be said. Hence we say the Word of God is the 
instrument in his hand to work in us and for us regener- 
ation and salvation : for " of his own will begat He u^ 
with the word of truth ... the engrafted word, which 
is able to save your souls" (James i. 18, 21). 

This leads us to say that we are related to God and the 
eternal verities revealed in this Book, not through intel- 
lectual apprehension and demonstration, but by faith. 
Not by reasoning, but by simple faith, do we lay hold on 
these verities, resting our faith on God, who is under and 
in every saving fact in the Book (1 Pet. i. 21). It 
, seems to me, therefore, supreme folly for men to be 
always speculating and reasoning about these spiritual and 
revealed things ; and yet we constantly meet even good 
people .who are thus dealing with God's Word. First of 
aU they treat the revelation as though it were only an 



58 ^^IIsT THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK/' 

opinion expressed concerning tlie things revealed ; and 
so they feel free to dissent from it, or to receive it with 
modification, and to deal with it as they would with the 
generalizations and conclnsions, more or less accurate, of 
the scientists, and the theories, more or less true, of the 
philosophers. If the Word commends itself to their 
judgment they accept it ; thus making their judgnnent 
the criterion of truth, instead of submitting their 
opinions to the infallible Word of God. And it is not 
seldom that we hear people say they believe the Word of 
God to be true ; and then the very next instant, w^hen 
pressed by some statement or declaration of that Word, 
they fly off and say, " Ah ! but then / believe so and 
so," — something entirely different from what God has 
declared. Then again, many people who profess to be- 
lieve God's Word seem never to think of putting them- 
selves into practical and saving relation to it. They be- 
lieve that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world ; but 
they never believe on" Him or in Him ; in other words, 
that He is a Saviour to them. 

God's Book is full of doctrines and promises. We de- 
clare them ; and some one says, ^' You must prove this 
doctrine or that promise to be true." The only way to 
prove a doctrine to be true is by a personal experience of 
it through faith in eTesus Christ. Jesus Christ says, " Ye 
MUST BE BORN AGAIN." Should you attempt to master the 
meaning and power of that doctrine by mere speculation, 
you would presently land just where Nicodemus did, and 
say, " How can these things be ?" Instead of doing so, 
suppose you attend further to what is said, namely, 
'' Whosoever belie veth is born of God " (1 John v. 1 ; 
John i. 12, 13). In obedience to this divine teaching, not 
knowing how it is to be done in us, we take that word 
and yield ourselves to Jesus Christ ; and lo ! there dawns 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 59 

• upon US an experience that throws light upon all that 
which before was a mystery. We have experienced no 
physical shock / but a great change is wrought in us, es- 
pecially in our relation to God. '' Old things are passed 
away ; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. v. 
17). 

Thus we come into an experimental understanding of 
the doctrine of the new birth. So every other doctrine 
pertaining to the spiritual life is by God's grace trans- 
muted into experience. For just as a word stands for an 
idea or thought, so the doctrines of God stand for ex- 
j)eriences ; but the doctrine must be received before the 
experience can be had. And, moreover, we are to re- 
ceive all doctrines, all truth, through faith in Him ; for 
Christ and his word are inseparable, just as a man's note 
is only current and worthful because the man is good. 
A bank-note is received in the faith of the hanh it rep- 
resents. Should the bank fail, the notes instantly be- 
come worthless. 

But there are some things revealed in the Word of 
God which we believe without experience. For instance, 
we believe that this ^Wile body" (Phil. iii. 21), dis- 
honored by sin, and upon the neck of which Death will 
soon put his foot, will in the day of Christ's '' appearing 
and kingdom" (2 Tim iv. 1 ; 1 Thess. iv. 16) be raised, 
changed, and fashioned like unto his glorious body (Phil, 
iii. 21). Do you know how we can so surely believe 
these things ? We answer, because God has proved to 
us so much of his word that when He announces some- 
thing yet to he made trxie^ we, on the basis of past ex- 
perience, reach out toward and accept as true the promise 
of the future things. Indeed, He already makes it true 
in our hearts, for " faith is the substance of things 
hoped for" (Heb. xi. 1). For even here we have a 



60 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

present spiritual experience wliicli is as an earnest to ns* 
of the culmination yet future. For we are already risen 
■vvitli Christ (Col. ii. 13 ; iii. 1 ; Eph. ii. 5, G ; Koni. 
viii. 11). 

II. 

The Word of God the only Authority in Matters of 
Faith and Practice hinding upon the Conscience. 

No man, no set of men, no church or ecclesiastical 
organization, has a right to impose upon us tests, or 
tenets other than those clearly written and expressed in 
the Scriptures. ^^ It is weitten," should preface every 
word of authority spoken, and every article of faith pro- 
pounded. We would not say that " creeds" drawn up 
by men and adopted by churches are in themselves bad ; 
on the other hand, we think they serve a very useful 
purpose. But undoubtedly a very bad use has been 
made of creeds. Creeds are at the best human formula- 
tions of truths already ascertained ; but no one of the 
many excellent creeds in use by the Church, unless we 
except the so-called Apostles' Creed, is without its seri- 
ous defects, either on account of overstatement or under- 
statement. They may be useful in guiding us somewhat 
into the examination and study of the Scriptures, by fur- 
nishing us with the maturest thought and research of the 
pious and learned men of the Church in all ages ; but 
they must in no case be foisted upon the conscience as 
of binding authority. Should a man or a church tell us 
that we must beheve this creed or that doctrine expressed 
in human and uninspired language, as a condition of sal- 
vation or standing before God and in his Church,, or im- 
pose upon us ordinances other than those clearly instituted 
by Jesus Christ, we ought to say to them, '^ Away with 
your creeds ; and away with your ordinances ! ' To the 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS EOR THE BELIEVER. 61 

law and to the testimony ; if tliey speak not according 
to this word it is because there is no h'ght in them ' " 
(Isa. viii. 20). 

Undoubtedly the organized Church of God has a right 
to guard itself against heresies and false doctrine. In 
the midst of so many false doctrines and false teachers, 
it may be necessary for the Church to publish a summary 
of her faith and practice ; but that confession must not 
be exalted into the place of God's Word. The Church 
at the time of Christ's ministry on the earth had well- 
nigh lost sight of the Scriptures by the accumulation of 
creeds, glosses, commentaries, and the like (Matt. xv. 2, 
3, 6 ; Col. ii. 8), so that they were more given to creeds 
and traditions and doctrines of men than they were to 
the Word of God. We are in the same danger now. If 
we give ourselves to daily searchings of the Scriptures, 
as did the noble Bereans (Acts xvii. 11), we shall be in 
little danger of falling into error. 

It is a woful evil to substitute the authority of 
'^ creeds" and ^^confessions of faith" for that of the 
Word of God, which is the only rule of faith and prac- 
tice for his people, and the only writing that is of bind- 
ing authority upon the conscience. I was once told by 
a man that to yield absolute allegiance to the Scripture, 
giving up all right of dissent from any of its teachings, 
was to degrade oneself into the condition of intellectual 
and spiritual slavery. Indeed, with a tone of pity and 
contempt, he said : '^ Poor slave !" '^ No, no !" I re- 
plied, ^' you are the slave ; I am the freeman, a glorious 
freeman — made free by the truth" (John viii. 32). It 
is the truth that makes us free, delivering us from the 
thraldom of opinion and speculation. Whenever any 
one yields obedience to the creeds of men or of churches, 
and surrenders the God-given right of personally search- 



63 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

ing the Scriptures to find out for himself the truth, then 
he indeed becomes a slave. Pay attention, if you will, 
reverently, to what the piety and learning of the Church 
have said in all the ages ; but never surrender your con- 
science to any save God, and that on the sole authority 
of his Word. 

III. 

The Bible contains in itself the absolute Guarantee of 
our Inheritance in Christ. 

Suppose 1 should come to you some day and call in 
question your ownership of your house, and demand that 
you give it up— a homestead bequeathed to you by your 
father. '' Why do you make such a demand upon me ?" 
you ask. ''Because," I reply, ''it is not your house ; 
you have no right to it ; at least you do not know that 
it is yours." " Oh, yes !" you reply; "I am quite 
sure it is my house." " How do you know ? what is 
your reason for believing that it is your house ?" 
"Why, because my father lived here before me." 
" That is no good reason." " Well, I have lived here 
undisturbed for five years myself." " It does not hence 
follow that the house is yours." ''But I am very 
happy in it : I enjoy myself here." "Well but, my 
dear sir^ that you may do, and still have no right to it." 
At last, pushed to the wall, you take me with you down 
the court-house, and show me your father's will, duly 
written, signed, sealed, and recorded. This may serve 
to illustrate the point. A great many Christians are at 
a loss where and how to ground their " title.' ' It is not 
in the fact that you are a descendant of a saintly family, 
a child of believing parents ; for, as old Matthew Henry 
says : " Grace does not run in the blood ;" nor is it that 
you have membership in the visible Church of Christ ; 



WHAT THE BIBLE COKTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 63 

nor is it to be found in delightful frames and feelings — 
in a word, not even a genuine Christian experience con- 
stitutes your " title-deed." 

Where then are we to lay the foundation of our hope ? 
Why, just in the naked, bare Word of God. It is 
written, " Yerily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth 
my word, and believeth Him that sent me, hath everlast- 
ing life," etc. (John v. 24). Straight to the record do 
we appeal for a final test as to our possession in God. 
'' This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal 
life ; and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son 
hath hfe ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not 
life" (1 John v. 11, 12). Our faith lays hold on the 
Son of God, in whom we have redemption (Eph. i. 7), 
by means of and through the recorded word of promise ; 
for this record was '' vjritten that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believ- 
ing, ye might have life through his name" (John xx. 
31). The Scriptures are the covenants, old and new, in 
which God has guaranteed to us, by word and oath 
(Heb. vi. 17, 18), sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ 
(Matt. xxvi. 28), an inheritance among the saints. I do 
not emphasize this point in any wise to underrate Chris- 
tian experience (for it is most blessed and true), or 
undervalue the blessing of believing parents, or the 
Church and her ordinances, but only to draw your atten- 
tion to " the more sure word of prophecy" (2 Pet. i. 
19), which is better to us for confirmation than visions 
and voices, frames and feelings, parental benedictions, 
Church absolutions, and sacraments. 



64 **i:S" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

IV. 

Tlie Word of God is the Means a/ppointed for the 
Culture of our Christian Life. 

James tells us (i. 18) that the word of truth is the in- 
strument of our regeneration, and Jesus tells us that the 
truth not only ^' makes us free," but prays the Father 
that we may be ^^ sanctified through the truth" (John 
viii. 32—36 ; xvii. 17—19). And Paul tells us, in words 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth, that " Christ loved the 
Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify 
and cleanse it with the washing of water hy the word^'^'* 
etc. (Eph. V. 25, 27). " This is the will of God, even 
your sanctification" (1 Thess. iv. 3) ; for '^ God hath 
not called us to uncleanness, but unto holiness" (1 Thess. 
iv. 7). 

After regeneration, nothing can be more important 
than this. We are told in the Bible — and we believe it 
— that by and by we shall be in another state of existence 
— in heaven — in the presence of the loving and glorified 
Jesus ; that we shall see his face, and his name shall be 
on our foreheads (Rev. xxii. 4) ; that we shall be with 
the a-ngels, an innumerable company, and with the spirits 
of just men made perfect, the saints of all ages (Heb. 
xii. 22, 23) ; that we shall know them and be in their 
society (Matt. xvii. 3 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 12) ; that we shall be 
absolutely untainted with sin, as glorious as the uncreated 
hght of ' God (Rev. xxi. 4, 27 ; Matt. xiii. 43). This 
being the place and the company toward which we are 
being borne along so rapidly, we want to be prepared for 
both place and society. 

Ah, friends ! you are anxious to be cultured for this 
world audits ''best society," in its knowledge, in its 
customs, and in its manners. Yes, you lavish time and 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAIIS-S FOR THE BELIEVER. 65 

money npoii yonrself and your children, in order that 
they may be furnished with the accomphshments and 
culture of this world. Tou say that when you appear 
in good society you want to be at ease, to be a peer 
among the most accomplished, and that you wish the 
same for your children. Were yon invited to go six 
months hence to take up your abode at the Court of St. 
James's, as the guest of England's noble queen, you 
would ransack all the books at your command that 
treated of court etiquette and manners ; you would brush 
up in English history, so that you might not be taken 
unawares either in your knowledge of the affairs of the 
country, or in court ceremonial. But in a little while we 
are going to the court of the King immortal, eternal, in 
the kingdom of glory. We know not the day nor the 
hour when the Lord will come, or when He will call us 
hence ; and we want to be ready, both as to purity of 
character and the courtly cultnre of the heavenly city. 
We wish to be fainihar with the history of redemption, 
and with the mysteries of the kingdom. We do not want 
to appear as awkward strangers in our Father's house of 
light. We can only get this sanctification of character, 
and culture of life and manner, by constant familiarity 
and communion with God and the saints, through the 
Word. 

You are anxious that yourself, or, it may be, that 
your children, should appear well in the society of this 
world. To this end you devote yourself and them to the 
schools of the world and fashion ; the dancing-school 
and the academy, you fancy, are the only places where 
polite manners and courtly grace may be acquired. I too 
am anxious that my child, just now approaching the 
threshold of womanhood, should be a cultured and ac- 
complished lady, in every way worthy of being the 



66 ''IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

King's dangliter, as by grace slie is. But I should not 
think of seeking for her the entree of what is called in 
this world the '^best society," or of sending her to a 
fashionable finishing-school and dancing-academy, in 
order to such end. If she have her heart filled with the 
dear, great love of God, and the sweet grace of Christ ; 
if she hang on the chamber-walls of her soul as pictures, 
^'whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely, and 
of good report, and think on these things" (Phil. iv. 8) ; 
if she journey through this world in companionship with 
Christ ; if the iP-oly Spirit guide her through the Word, 
as Bunyan's pilgrim was led through the " House of the 
Interpreter," and show her wonderful and beautiful 
things out of God's law ; if the fruit of the Spirit, which 
is '' love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. v. 22, 23), 
adorn her life and character,— I am not afraid that, in 
culture of mind and heart, or in grace of manner, she 
will be a whit behind the foremost lady in the land. 
Ah ! there is a heavenly culture and a divine grace of 
manner that far transcend anything found in the schools 
of this world. Only a Christian could think of saying 
with Paul, standing before his judge, "except these 
honds^^ (Acts xxvi. 29). 

John Bunyan, locked up for twelve years in Bedford 
jail, with his Bible and concordance for his constant and 
almost only companions, produced and sent forth to 
the world his immortal dream, written with such beauty 
of style and in such chaste and simple manner, as to 
make it classic in English literature. So perfect and 
matchless were the intellectual and spiritual culture of 
this unlearned '^ tinker of Elstow," that the scholarly 
John Owen testified before the king : " Your Majesty, 
if I could write as does that tinker in Bedford jail, I 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 67 

would gladly lay down all my learning." Where did 
John Bunyan get his culture ? In glorious fellowship 
with Moses in the law ; with David in the Psalms ; with 
Isaiah and the prophets and holy men of God, who wrote 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; with Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, John ; with Paul, Peter, and all the rest 
who wrote and spoke, not their own thoughts, nor in 
words of man's wisdom, but God's thoughts, and in 
words which the Holy Ghost giveth. Read Homer and 
Milton, Shakespeare and Dante ; read Bacon, Macaulay, 
Addison, and Carlyle ; go through the best literature of 
every age ;' and all will fall infinitely short of the purity, 
beauty, and grandeur of thought and expression found 
in God's Word. 

Goethe, who said he was ^^ not Christian," has declared 
of the canonical Gospels : '' The human mind, no matter 
how much it mav advance in intellectual culture, and in 
the extent and depth of the knowledge of nature, will 
never transcend the high moral culture of Christianity 
as it shines and glows in the canonical Gospels." Re- 
nan, the French infidel author, concludes his life of Jesus 
with these remarkable words : " Whatever may be the 
surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed ; 
his worship will grow young without ceasing ; his legend 
will call forth tears without end ; his suffering will melt 
the noblest hearts ; all ages will proclaim that among the 
sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus. " And 
Strauss, the rationalistic German author of the Zife of 
JesuSy says : " Jesus presents within the sphere of re- 
ligion the culminating point, beyond which posterity can 
never go — yea, which it cannot even equal. . . . He 
remains the highest model of religion within the reach 
of our thought ; and no perfect piety is possible without 
his presence in the heart." Thus the power of the 



68 '^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

^' Book and the Person" for the highest culture of the 
highest nature of man, is affirmed by the great apostle 
of modern culture, and by those who do not admit the 
divine origin of the Scriptures, or the deity of Him of 
whom they are from first to last the witness. If, then, 
you want to know how to serve God and do his will on 
the earth, and be thoroughly prepared and cultured for 
heaven hereafter, take his Word, and make it the rule 
and companion of your life. 



The Bible is the Christianas Armory. 

The Christian's calling in the world is that of a soldier. 
He must fight the good fight of faith (1 Tim. vi. 12 ; 2 
Tim. iv. Y). Sinners are to be won from the power of 
the devil to God. Their intelligence, their wills, and 
their affections, are to be stormed and carried for Him ; 
they are to be turned from the power of darkness to 
light ; their prison-houses of sin are to be broken into ; 
their chains knocked off' ; and the captives set free (Acts 
xxvi. 16 — 18 ; Luke iv. 18). We also, in our own Chris- 
tian life and pilgrimage, are set upon by the powers of 
darkness ; by the fiery darts of the devil. Doubts ; in- 
fidelity ; temptations ; evil imaginations ; unclean, un- 
holy, and vain thoughts — assail us, poured in upon our 
souls by Satan ; the lusts of the flesh being thus set on 
fire of hell, if by this means the child of God may be 
overtaken in a fault or overcome by sin. 

But this warfare is not carnal, or after the manner of 
the flesh. " For though we walk in the flesh [have our 
lives as other men do, in fleshly bodies], we do not war 
after the flesh ; for the weapons of our warfare are not 
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of 



WHAT THE BIBLE COKTAIKS FOR THE BELIEVER. 69 

strongholds, casting down imaginations [reasonings], and 
every high thing [lofty edifice] that is exalted against 
the knowledge of God ; and bringing into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x. 
3 — 5). Just as Joshua went up against Jericho, and took 
its strongholds and high towers, and cast them down and 
made captive the city, not with carnal weapons, but with 
trumpets of rams' horns (Josh, vi.), so we, proceeding 
against the strongholds, imaginations, and infidel argu- 
ments of men, are to take the gospel trump. The sword 
we are to wield is the '' Word of God, the sword of the 
Spirit" (Eph. vi. 17), that Christian's '' Excalibur" 
which makes him who wields it invincible. 

The Bible itself must be brought out, not only as the 
best defence against all the assaults of infidehty from the 
lofty towers of human reasonings, but also as the mighty 
weapon to overcome and bring the enemies of God into 
captivity to Christ. ^' They overcame by the blood of 
the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (Rev. 
xii. 11). " Wherefore take unto you the whole armor 
of God ; having your loins girt about with truth ; and 
having on the breastplate of righteousness ; and your 
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
and above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall 
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked ; and 
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God " (Eph. vi. 13 — 17). In order 
that we may be furnished with the secret of successful 
wai*fare for Jesus, we have only to recall how He over- 
came the devil with the all-prevailing weapon, ^' It is 
written." 

Yery often Christians, young and old, come to me in 
the ''inquiry room," and say, '' Won't you come and 
talk with this friend of mine ?" " Why don't you talk 



70 ^'m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

with him yourself ?" The reply usually is : ^^ Because I 
don't know what to say to him ; and, besides, you know 
more of the Bible." "Well, why don't you know 
more of the Bible ?" To this, various answers are 
given. At any rate we meet here one grave mistake : 
This ignorance of the Bible, which not only supplies us 
with our spiritual weapons, but " thoroughly furnishes us 
unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii. 17), leads many earnest 
Christians to the doubtful use of their own argumenta- 
tion in dealing with their own and others' souls. It is a 
hopeless task to pull down the strongholds of the unre- 
generated mind and heart with anything less than divine 
weapons. But all may equip themselves from this great 
armory. The Bible contains ideas which no philosophy 
or human theory can furnish, and therefore puts us in 
possession of weapons which the enemy cannot withstand 
when hard pushed by them, reinforced as they are by 
the invisible and mighty presence of the Holy Spirit, 
thus rendering us impregnable to the assaults of the ad- 
versary. 

Of this mighty power of the Word and Spirit of God 
we have a splendid example in the case of Stephen, and 
other early disciples, whose words, drawn from the Script- 
ure, the Jews could not withstand. I have never yet met 
an infidel or atheist whose arguments could not be turned 
aside by one depending simply on the Word of God. 
3^ay, more ; I have never yet met one in the *' ' inquiry 
room" who has been able to withstand God's Word and 
the mighty facts of the Bible, when, in humble depend- 
ence upon God, I have set them in array before him. 
If you know God's thoughts, and seek to be guided by 
the Holy Spirit, He will, at the right time, utter out of 
your mouth the right word, both to ward off an assault 
and to strike a telling blow for the truth. And amidst 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 71 

all this warfare, the light and love and gentleness of 
Jesus Christ will so shine out in your bearing and man- 
ner that men will be convinced of your sincerity, and 
God will give you the victory. 

YI. 

The Bible is a jperfect Map and Chart to the Christian 
on Pilgrimage through the World. 

With God's Word in hand and heart you may thread 
your way with perfect safety and confidence through all 
the labyrinths of this world. The strait and narrow way 
is so clearly and sharply marked that he who runs may 
read. It is a highway (unseen, it may be, by the world- 
ling) in which a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not 
err (Isa. xxxv. 8), for it is everywhere marked by God's 
commandments. More than that, we have an unseen 
guide, even the Spirit of Truth, who leads us, and who 
says to us, in places of doubt or uncertainty, " This is 
the way, walk ye in it " (Isa. xxx. 21). Thus, a pilgrim 
and a stranger, you may keep your onward way to the 
city of God in safety and confidence, following the light 
of the word, which is ^^ a lamp unto your feet, and a 
light unto your path" (Psa. cxix. 105), the path that no 
one knoweth save He that leadeth thee. Tea, and you 
will find that the way, over hills and through valleys, 
shines more and more unto the perfect- day (Prov. iv. 
18). ■ . 

The Word of God is a chart that marks all the rocks 
and reefs in the sea of life ; if we heed, and sail our frail 
bark by it, we shall come safely into the haven of rest 
at last. But if we are heedless and proud, and self-suffi- 
cient in our own conceits, we shall make shipwreck of 
our faith. A young lieutenant in the English navy dis- 



72 /^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

covered a small but dangerous rock in the Mediterranean, 
never before known, and reported it to the Admiralty. 
The discovery was telegraphed to all the stations, and 
the position of the rock ordered to be noted down on all 
the charts. The first ship to sail over the spot was under 
command of an old captain, who, noting the warning 
newly placed on his chart, desired to knov/ by whom 
the rock was reported. On being informed he replied : 
" There is no such rock there. I have sailed over this 
sea for twenty years ; and if such a rock had been there 
I should have found it." And then in his pride and 
conceit he gave orders to his sailing-master to steer 
directly over the spot indicated. The gallant ship was 
driven over the danger spot under full sail. There was 
a tremendous crash, and the noble vessel went down with 
all hands. Many a Christian makes shipwreck through 
unheeding conceit, or through neglect of his infallible 
chart. May the Holy Spirit incline us to study dili- 
gently our divine chart, and sail closely by it ! 

YII. 

The Bible reveals Things to come. 

It contains not only the history of the: past, of God's 
dealings with nations, but it also contains much unful- 
filled prophecy. The Revelation is a book devoted to 
things that ''must shortly come to pass." Prophecy 
has been called un-acted history ; and history is but ful- 
filled prophecy. It is a mistake to suppose that God's 
hand in history has been limited to those nations men- 
tioned in the Bible. Could we have the story of God in 
history, it would be seen that his providence has been 
in and over all the great and small events of all nations. 
Daniel in his great prophecy has given a rapid and 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 73 

graphic sketch of the course of history from the golden - 
headed Babylonian empire down to the end of time, 
when the " Son of Man shall come with the clouds of 
heaven, . . . when there shall be given Him dominion 
and glory, and a kingdom, that all nations and languages 
should serve Him. " When He comes, his dominion will 
be an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, 
and his kingdom one which shall not be destroyed (Dan. 
ii. 44 ; vii. 13 — 27). Meantime among nations God will 
be " overturning, and overturning, and overturning, 
until He comes whose right it is" (Ezek. xxi. 27). The 
Book of Revelation is a detailed exposition of the second 
and seventh chapters of Daniel ; and the two books 
should be read together. 

Emperors, and kings, and cabinets, are rapidly bring- 
ing to pass things that God has marked out in prophecy 
ages ago. But they know not what they do. There 
are '^ signs in the heavens," and on the earth there is 
'' distress of nations with perplexity ; the sea and the 
waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and 
for looking after those things wliich are coming on the 
earth ; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. 
And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a 
cloud, with power and great glory" (Luke xxi. 25 — 27). 
Of the day and hour when the flaming heavens shall 
reveal the " appearing and kingdom" of our Lord Jesus 
Christ (2 Tim, iv. 1) no man knoweth ; but we are bid- 
den to wait and be ready, lest we be surprised by the 
great and notable day of the Lord. 

To this end the Scriptures are also written, that the 
loving student of them may live in advance of history, 
and be overtaken by no untoward event. If God's pro- 
phetic word dwell richly in our hearts and minds, there 
will be no great surprise for us as time goes on. We 



74 ^^m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

sliall discern through the prophetic telescope — dimly, it 
may be — the approaches of those things out of which 
history is made. Should it be oar blessed lot to be 
'^ alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord" (1 
Thess. iv. 17), we shall see the sign of Him in heaven 
(Matt. xxiv. 30), before the startled and amazed world, 
lying in sin and mocking unbelief (2 Pet. iii. 3 ; Luke 
xviii. 8), is overwhelmed in that '' everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory 
of his power" (2 Thess. i. Y— 9). 

We know that there is a growing disposition on the 
part of many excellent Christians to make light (they 
know not what they do !) of all prophetic study ; but 
our risen Lord, in his last revelation to John concerning 
things to come, caused him to write at the very outset, 
'^Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear, the 
words of th.is> prophecy / and keep those things which 
are written the2?ein : for the time is at hand ;" and at 
the close of the book to add : " These sayings are faith- 
ful and true : and the Lord God of the holy prophets 
sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which 
must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly : hlessed 
is he that keepeth the sayings of the j^rojphecy of this 
looh " (Rev. xxii. 6, 7). 

Some careless servant or foolish virgin may say : 
" These are great mysteries : we cannot understand 
them ; therefore, we had better not ^ dabble ' in them." 
To this let me make answer : We are commanded to 
read them, and a special blessing is promised to the dili- 
gent student of these mysteries. Moreover, He hath 
said, " Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the 
kingdom of God" (Mark iv. 11; Eph. i. 9). God's 
Word is a secret, or mystery, to them that know Him 
not ; but it is an open secret to them that fear Him, and 



WHAT THE BIBLE CONTAINS FOR THE BELIEVER. 75 

seek unto his law. For " the secret of the Lord is with 
them tlmt year Him ; and He will show them his cove- 
nant " (Psa. XXV. 14). May the Spirit of God give ns a 
mind to study his word ^reverently and believingly, with 
a prepared heart, as did Ezra (vii. 10), in the light and 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then will He 
" show us things to come" (John xvi. 13). 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

Divisions and books of the Old and New Testment — Caution against 
neglecting to observe the relation of the Old to the New Testament 
— Reasons why the former should be carefully read — No thorough 
understanding of the New Testament without careful study of the 
Old — The book of Jesus and of the Apostles and the early Dis- 
ciples. 

The Old Testament is divided historically into six 
great epochs : from the creation to the call of Abraham ; 
from Abraham to Moses ; from Moses to the crossing of 
the Jordan under Joshua ; from Joshua to David, or the 
period of the Judges ; from David to the captivity ; 
from the captivity to the coming of Christ, including the 
partial restoration and reformation under Ezra and 
Nehemiah. It has three general divisions recognized by 
Christ : " The Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms." 
All parts of the Book testify of Him (Luke xxis^. M). 
In detail we note the five books of Moses : Genesis, 
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or, as 
they are commonly called, the Pentateuch. Then come 
the historical books, Joshua, Judges, 1st and 2d Samuel, 
the books of the Kings and the Chronicles : then Job, 
the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of 
Solomon ; nor must we forget the two interesting books 
called Ruth and Esther : then the Prophets, major and 
minor. Jesus speaks of the Old Testament inclusively 
as the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



77 



We should be cautioned against the too common 
ne-lect of the Old Testament. There has been for some 
years past a growing tendency among many really good 
Christians, to regard the Old Testament as being m some 
sense an effete book, with which the Christian has noth- 
ino- to do, unless, indeed, it be with a few of the Psalms, 
which may be used as companions for hours of devotion. 
Genesis has been by many handed over to the scientists ; 
the other historical books to the ethnologists and arch^ol- 
oo-ists ; Leviticus to the Jews ; the Prophets to the Sec- 
ond Adventists. Indeed, it was but a few months ago 
that a somewhat distinguished New England clergyman 
said at a public gathering of Sunday-school teachers, m 
substance, " The Old Testament is out of date ; give me 
a few of the Psalms and a chapter or two out of Isaiah, 
and I have no further use for it." 

We do not mean to say that for the more common and 
habitual use of the Christian the Old Testament is as im- 
portant as the New ; but we do mean to say that no 
Christian can aflEord to ignore or even lightly treat the Old 
Testament. The Bible is one look, and though one part 
may be relatively of more importance than another, yet 
every part ought to be familiar to the Christian, that 
each part in its season may minister to his help, culture, 
and sanctihcation. Indeed, the more earnest Bible 
students among us are daily awakening to the very great 
importance of that portion of God's Word, in order to a 
clearer and better understanding of the Eew Testament. 
It was St. Augustine who said, many centuries ago, 
. "The New Testament is <?«folded in the Old ; and the 
Old Testament is -i/nfolded in the New. For, what is 
the law but the Gospel foreshadowed ? and what is the 
Gospel but the law fulfilled ?" 

The following are some of the many reasons why the 



78 



IJSr THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. 



9? 



Old Testament Scriptures should be carefully and 
lovingly studied by every Christian : 

1. It is the warp into which the New Testament 
Scriptures are woven. A little thought will suggest to 
you the very close friendship between the Old and New 
Testaments. There are in the New Testament nearly 
one thousand direct quotations from, and palpable allu- 
sions to, the Old Testament Scriptures ; and every book 
in the Old Testament (unless it be the Book of Esther) is 
quoted from, or alluded to, by the writers of the New 
Testament. To give a better idea of the prominence of 
the Old Testament thought in the New, 1 will present a 
little table showing the number of times (proximately) 
the Old Testament is quoted from, or palpably alluded 
to, in the New Testament books. 



Matthew, . 


. 96 times 


Colossians, 


3 times 


Mark, . 


. 34 " 


1 Thess., . 


. 2 " 


Luke, . 


. 58 - 


2 Thess., . 


. 2 *' 


John, . 


. 40 " 


1 Timothy, 


. 6 *« 


Acts, . 


. 57 -. 


2 Timothy, 


2 ** 


Komans, 


. 74 - 


Hebrews, . 


86 ** 


1 Corinthians, 


. 41 *' 


James, 


. 16 *' 


2 Corinthians, 


. 13 *' 


1 Peter, 


. 20 '« 


Galatians, . 


. . 16 - 


2 Peter, 


10 ** 


Ephesians, 


. 11 " 


1 John, 


. 6 '* 


Philippians, 


. 3 ** 


Kevelation, 


. 249 ** 



This fact alone ought to fasten our attention on the 
Old Testament, and set us to searching it. Indeed, we 
think it fair to say that there can be no kind of thorough 
understanding of the Gospels and Epistles, to say nothing 
of the Acts and Revelation, without some degree of 
familiarity with the Old Testament. 

The Old Testament becomes, on this account, the best 
of all dictionaries to open the New. Let us take one or 
three examples. AVhat could we know of the signifi- 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 

cance of John the Baptist's saying on the occasion of his 
introduction of Jesus at the time of His baptism : 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world" (John i. 29), if we did not know the history 
and profound significance of the lamb that was slain on 
that dreadful night in Egypt (Ex. xii.), when its inter- 
vening blood sprinkled on the door-posts and lintels of 
the Hebrew cottages saved them from the stroke of the 
destroying angel ? Or how should we understand what 
our Lord meant when He said to Nicodemus, ^'As 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John iii. 14), if we 
were not acquainted with the story of the brazen serpent 
in Numbers xxi. Or how should we know what was 
meant by being ^^ made nigh by the blood of Christ" 
(Eph. ii. 13), or the breaking down of the '^ middle wall 
of partition" (v, 14), if we were not familiar with the law 
of the offerings, and the structure of the Temple. In- 
deed, the entire doctrine of salvation by atonement would 
be unintelligible to us but for the Old Testament ground- 
work. 

But not only is it thus a necessary dictionary, it is also 
a pictorial illustration of the New Testament. Take 
only the Book of Exodus, and we see a picture of human 
sin and bondage in the slavery of the Hebrew race in 
Egypt. In Egypt we see the pleasure-loving, lascivious 
world. In the Burning Bush we have a picture of God- 
head coming down and dwelling in human nature. In 
Moses and Aaron we see the Apostle and High-priest of 
redemption (Heb. iii. 1) ; in the Paschal Lamb we see 
Christ our Passover slain for us (1 Cor. v. 7) ; in the 
passage of the Red Sea we have a picture of our separa- 
tion from the world and our consecration to God in bap- 
tism. The Book of Numbers gives us the wilderness 



80 '^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

wandering ; Leviticus, the picture of the way of the 
sinner back to God by means of a high priest and blood ; 
Joshua, our entrance by faith into the Canaan of God, 
and faith's victories. So in the Old Testament char- 
acters we have helpful pictures of Christian life. In 
Abraham we find faith pictured ; In Isaac we see son- 
ship / in Jacob, the pilgrim / in Joseph, the sufferer 
for Christ finally glorified. In Lot we see the worldly 
Christian, in strong contrast with the patriarch who made 
God his portion, and would not be enriched by the king 
of Sodom. 

All these are most interesting and striking pictures of 
grace, in the method and development of God's plan, to 
those who have an eye to see and a heart to take in the 
things that God has revealed to us by his Spirit (1 Cor. ii. 
9, 10). When Israel was a child, God called him out of 
Egypt (Hos. xi. 1) ; and being a child, God taught his son 
pictorially as we now teach our children. It is profitable 
for us to study the mature and completed revelation in 
the light and by the help of these early pictures. Tou 
would find geometry, chemistry, geology, or astronomy, 
and indeed any science, hard to master out of books if 
they were not profusely illustrated, so that the eye as 
well as the mere understanding can take in facts. We 
pity the student of God's Word who has grown too old 
or too wise to be interested in the pictures of salvation 
God has given us in his Word. 

Our interest in the Old Testament must be greatly 
quickened when we remember that it was the book out 
of which Jesus, when yet a little child, was taught by 
his mother. Doubtless in his youth and early manhood 
the sacred parchments were, during his intermissions 
fi'om labor at his trade of carpenter, rarely out of his 
hands. He was not a student at the college of the 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

Prophets, or at the rabbinical schools at Jerusalem ; but 
God's Word, the wonderful writings of Moses, and the 
prophets, and the psalms that spake of Him, were the 
sources whence he drank in his deep knowledge. 
'' Whence hath this man this wisdom ?'' (Matt. xiii. 54:) 
and " How knoweth this man letters (learning and doc- 
trines of God), having never learned ?" — at college or in 
the theological seminary (John vii. 15). 

These were puzzling questions to the questioners, but 
the answer is simple : Jesus was a close, careful, and 
life-long student of the Old Testament. From this 
divine armory He drew his weapons with which to 
parry the subtle and deadly attacks of Satan. ^'Itis 
written ; " ^ ^ it is written ; " ^ Mt is written. ' ' And again 
and again he uphfted the shield of faith ; drew the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, from the 
sacred Scriptures ; foiled the thrust ; and gave the 
enemy blow for blow, sending him staggering backward 
defeated (Matt. iv. 3 — 11). After his resurrection Jesus 
gathered his disciples together and reproved them for 
their want of understanding of the Scriptures : ^^ O fools, 
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
spoken ! ought not Christ to have suffered these things, 
and to have entered into his glory ? And beginning at 
Moses and all the prophets. He expounded unto them in 
all the Scriptures the things concerning HimseK. And 
said unto them : Thus it is written ; and thus it be- 
hoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
day" (Luke xxiv. 25—27, 46). 

What a careful, patient and loving student of the Old 
Testament must our Lord have been! This alone ought 
to make us love it and study it. 1 have an old book in 
my library, a copy of the first English edition of Calvin^ s 
Institutes. It has been handed down from father to son 



82 ^^m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK/' 

through generations ; has been handled and read and 
studied by some of the devoutest and ablest old Puritan 
Fathers — until it finally fell into my hands. I love to 
take up that book sometimes, and read out of its pages 
the sturdy teachings of the Geneva Reformer, because so 
many good and holy men have used it before me. With 
how much more delight should we love to think, as we 
read and study Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, that 
the eye and the heart of the loving Lord Himself has pored 
over these same chapters and words ; that He has studied 
the significance of these wonderful histories, and types, 
and characters ; for He used often to speak of them all 
—of Moses, of David, of Solomon, of Abraham, of Lot, 
of Jonah, of Noah, and the others ! But especially is it 
delightful when, in the study of them all, Jesus Him- 
self is seen in the Book. His presence in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures is constantly seen and felt ; and the 
heart burns again as He talks with us by the way out of 
Moses and the Prophets. 

Again, these same ancient Scriptures were the only 
books of the apostles. From them Peter drew his 
searching sermons ; Stephen framed his magnificent 
defence ; Paul pleaded his case before his brethren the 
Jews, and the Roman governors ; Philip preached Jesus 
both to the Samaritans and to the eunuch. The great 
apostle framed his epistles to the churches upon the Old 
Testament Scriptures ; and with the parchments in his 
hands, whilst in his prison-house at Rome, to the people 
who came to him on appointed days he '' expounded" 
them, " and testified the kingdom of God, persuading 
them concerning Jesus, 5(?^A out of the law of MoseSy 
and out of the Prophets^ from morning till evening" 
(Acts xxviii. 23). 

Neither had the early disciples any Bible but the Old 



THE IMPORTAlirCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 

Testament ; for it was not nntil many years after tlie 
gathering of the first churches that even portions of what 
we now call the New Testament began to be circulated ; 
and it was many years after the Gospels and Epistles were 
written before they were gathered together and formally 
incorporated into the sacred canon. 

For all these and many other reasons which neither 
time nor space will suflBce to give, the careful, frequent, 
and loving study of the Old Testament Scriptures is 
urged. It is a sad thing that, in these days, these old 
mines of truth are so generally neglected, for they are 
as rich to-day as ever ; nay, more rich are they, for we 
can work them in the better and clearer light afforded by 
the New Testament. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

STUDY OF THE INDIYIBUAL BOOKS. 

Importance of getting clear idea of the central truth or main line of 
teaching in each book of the Bible — Illustrations given from the 
Book of Genesis — (1) The beginnings — (2) The courses of human 
nature from its source in Adam — (3) Man in nature and grace— In 
the lines of Cain and Abel-Seth — (4) Types in Genesis — Hints for 
the further pursuit of this kind of study. 

It is well, and indispensable to tlie most profitable study 
of the Bible, to get a dear idea of the central truth or 
main line of teaching contained in each of the loohs of 
the Bihle. For it is certain that every book has its 
peculiar teaching, and its relation to each of the other 
books. There is a wonderful system underlying the pro- 
gressive development of revelation and doctrine through- 
out the whole Bible. I will venture to suggest what I 
mean, by way of brief example or illustration from the 
Book of Genesis, merely for the purpose of giving you 
the clue to further personal inquiry and study. 

Note first, that there are various lines of teachings in 
each book. For instance, in Genesis, we have historical, 
dispensational, and typical truth, beside many incidental 
but no less significant lines. The same is true of the 
other books of Moses, and especially of all the earlier 
historical books of the Bible ; for God's revelation is 
seen in history, as well as in the direct " Thus saith the 
Lord." 

Indeed, the whole history of creation — of the race and 
its development, in connection with its institutions and 



STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOOKS. 85 

relations — is but a great series of parables. Says Arch- 
bishop Trench : " The entire moral and visible world 
from first to last, with its kings and its subjects, its par- 
ents and its children, its sun and its moon, its sowing and 
its harvest, its light and its darkness, its sleeping and its 
waking, its birth and its death, is from beginning .to end a 
mighty parable, a great teaching of supersensuous truth, 
a help at once to our faith and our understanding, 
. . . The world of nature being throughout a wit- 
ness for the world of spirit, proceeding from the same 
hand, growing out of the same root, and being consti- 
tuted for that very end. All lovers of truth readily ac- 
knowledge these mysterious harmonies, and the force of 
arguments derived from them." The things on earth 
are but copies of things in heaven, as says the sublime 

poet — • 

*' What if earth 
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein, 
Each to the other like, more than on earth is thought !'* 

The Book of Genesis is for many reasons the most 
wonderful of all the books in the Bible. In this Genesis 
we see 

First : The origin of creation and of institutions. 

1. The origin of creation. '' In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth' ' (i. 1). 

2. The origin of the human race, '^ And God said, 
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . 
So God created man in his own image : in the image 
of God created He him ; male and female created He 
them" (i. 26, 27 ; ii. 7). 

3. The origin of the Sathath. '' And on the seventh 
day God ended his work which He had made ; and He 
rested on the seventh day from all his work which He 



86 "IN" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanc- 
tified it'' (ii. 2, 3). 

4. The origin of marriage. ' ' And the Lord God said. 
It is not good that the man should be alone ; 1 will make 
him an helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a 
deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept ; and He took 
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof ; 
and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the 
man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. 
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and 
flesh of my flesh. Therefore shall a man leave his 
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife ; 
and they shall be one flesh" (ii. 18, 21—24). 

5. The origin of sin and death. ''And the Lord 
God commanded the man, saying : Of every tree of the 
garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; 
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely 
die. . . . And the serpent said unto the woman : Ye 
shall not surely die. . . . And she took of the fruit 
thereof, and did eat ; and gave also unto her husband 
with her, and he did eat" (ii. 16, 17 ; iii. 4— Y). 

6. The beginning of grace in its manifestation toward 
sinful man^ and the origin of sacrifice. " And the Lord 
God said unto the serpent [in the hearing and presence 
of Adam and Eve], I will put enmity between thee and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall 
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. . . . 
Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God 
make coats of skin, and clothed them" (iii. 14 — 21). 

7. The origin of the covenant promises. ' ' And Noah 
builded an altar unto the Lord . . . and the Lord 
smelled a sweet savor ; and the Lord said in his heart, I 
will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. 



STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOOKS. 87 

. . . And God said, This is the token of the covenant, 
which I make between me, and you, and every living 
creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I 
do set my bow in the cloud ; and it shall be for a token 
of a covenant between me and the earth" (viii. 20 — 22 ; 
ix.l— 17). 

8. Tke origin vf races ^ nations^ and tongues (x., xi.). 
These two chapters are by the most learned ethnologists 
confessed to contain more exact information on these 
most interesting topics than has been, or can be, any- 
where else found by students. 

9. The origin of the chosen people. ^^ Now the Lord 
had said unto Abram : Get thee out of thy country, and 
from thy kindred ; and I will make of thee a great 
nation" (xii. 1 — 3). 

When we think of it, these nine facts recorded in the 
Book of Genesis, which solve some of the most important 
questions that are proposed to the thought of man, would 
give an importance to Genesis that cannot attach to any 
other known writing in the world. 

But this bundle of beginnings is the mere wave -sheaf 
from this harvest field of truth. 

Secoishd : The course of human nature as it flows 
FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE IN Adam. Here WO sce all 
the forms of life which either by nature or grace can grow 
out of the root of the old Adam. '' Adam and his out- 
come," says an able writer on this book, '' by grace and 
nature, reveal in embryo the whole mystery of grace and 
nature in the creature. It is thus the abstract of the 
Bible with the long sum of the Divine Counsel worked 
out and expressed in God's Algebra." 

1. If we look at human nature as a whole, Genesis 
shows us the utter failure of man. First, we see him in 



88 ^'IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

Adam, who, with his God-given wife, notwithstanding 
God made them npright and in his own image, so soon 
failed in their obedience and trust, and thus fell under 
the sentence of death and were banished from Eden. But 
before God, in obedience to law and government, drove 
them out. He put the lamp of promise in their hands, 
and clothed them with coats of skins (iii. 15 — 24). Again 
the race is started off under a dispensation of grace. We 
need hardly speak of failure in Cain, who slew his 
brother, and stained the virgin earth with blood that 
cried out to God (iv. 10). But failure is seen even in 
the righteous and believing line through Seth, whom 
God gave to Adam and his wife in the stead of the 
righteous Abel whom Cain slew. At this time the dis- 
tinct recognition of the Lord became common in the 
family of Seth ; and with him possibly began the first 
formal worship of God, for '' then began men to call 
upon the name of the Lord" (iv. 25, 26). Righteous- 
ness seems to have had some sway in the earth during 
this period, in which also Enoch appears, who " walked 
with God" (v. 22). Even this would imply a falling 
away on the part of the many. Indeed, Enoch seems to 
have been the only standard-bearer of faith in his age 
(Heb. xi. 5). But now we find that apostasy had become 
general, even among the children of God, or the right- 
eous line of Seth ; for the sons of God began to inter- 
marry with the daughters of men, or the Cainites (vi. 
2) ; and in the embrace of the world the Church was soon 
extinguished. The failure and descent into sin was very 
rapid, for " God saw that the wickedness of man was 
great in the earth" (vi. 5), so great that He decided to 
destroy every living thing, man and beast. How av>^f ul 
does the failure of man, so far as righteousness is con- 
cerned, seem at this time ! 



STUDY OF THE USTDIYIDUAL BOOKS. 89 

Yet to give the race a new start, and a new trial, 
Koali, the great-grandson of Enoch, also " found grace 
in the eyes of the Lord," and " walked with God" as did 
Enoch (vi. 8, 9). Noah is now to be a yonng world's new 
father. The flood rolls over the old world, and buries it 
deep under judgment and death ; while Noah with his 
ark — in which God shut him in, with his family and the 
animals, for a seed with which to plant the new world 
— emerges as through a regeneration ; and the race 
starts off again under new and better auspices, for God 
makes a special covenant with Noah on behalf of the 
earth (viii. 20 — 22 ; ix. 1 — lY). Noah and his family 
move out of the ark (ix. 18). Surely with the fearful 
judgment of God just behind them, and the new covenant 
bow bending over them, the race will learn to walk 
henceforth with God. But, alas ! the first vintage leads 
to failure in Noah, and the flesh triumphs over the spirit 
in Noah's drunkenness. Ham looks upon his father's 
nakedness, and a father's curse falls upon him (ix. 22 — 
25). The failure in the family of Noah is complete in 
their unholy attempt at Babel, when the Lord answered 
their ^' Go to, let us build," by his '' Go to, let us go 
down, and there confound their language" (xi. 4, 7). 
'^ So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon 
the face of all the earth" (v. 8). So far as the record 
shows, this new start of the race under Noah failed, and 
ended in universal idolatry, for even Terah, the father of 
Abraham, was an idolater (Josh. xxiv. 2, 14, 15). 

Out of this idolatrous family God called Abram in 
order to give the race yet another start ; and that it 
might this time be even more favorable, Abram is 
separated from his family and from the nations, and per- 
sonally led by God, who talked with him as a man 
talketh to his friend. Moreover, that the divine experi- 



90 ^*IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

ment might be more fevorablj tried, tlie rest of the 
world was left to its sinful courses ; and grace limits 
itself to one family, who should bewailed in from the 
nations around about them (Gen. xii. 1 — 3). We need 
not dwell upon this last experiment with human nature 
under the old dispensation ; the road is a short but sad 
one. Through Isaac and Jacob we trace this chosen 
family, and find them at last landed in hopeless bondage 
in the house of Egypt, the type of the luxurious and 
lascivious world ; and though God kept them a distinct 
race of people, we learn from Joshua that they became 
idolatrous in Egypt (Josh. xxiv. 14). Had God left the 
race, and dealt no more with them in grace, it must have 
ended here in the most miserable failure — failure in 
Adam ; failure in the family of Seth ; failure in the 
family of Noah ; and failure in the family of Abraham, 
the friend of God, and most highly favored of the 
patriarchs. Truly Genesis may be called the book of 
human failure. 

We may add, by way of application of this very appar- 
ent fact, that it was necessary for man to know by failure 
and sin his own weakness and insufficiency, before he 
would voluntarily choose God for his portion. For the 
same reason God drove the man out of the garden, and 
let him know the bitterness of sin, that he might not 
henceforth choose the creature as his good ; but proving 
the poverty of the world, and all that is in it, to meet 
the needs of his godlike nature, overmade for this world, 
he might turn to God, the only satisfying portion of the 
soul. This is the method of grace : man weary and 
heavy-laden, starving on the husks of this world, broken 
and distressed by its sorrows, turns in despair to God ; 
even as Israel in Egypt sighed and cried by reason of 
their bondage, and their cry came up to God (Exod. ii.). 



STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOOKS. 91 

ThIED : MAiq- AS HE IS BY NATURE AND GRACE. We 

have taken a brief look at man as a whole race, and as 
such have seen his failure in righteousness. As we look 
more closely, we see the race clearly divided into two 
great families, not by race lines, but by spiritual lines. 
The race flows forth from its head in Adam into two 
streams, — one stream through Cain being the seed of 
the serpent ; not because of any difference in their 
nature, but because they choose the way and course of 
sin, and " walk according to the course of this world, 
according to the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 
ii. 2). The other line is through Abel-Seth, and these 
are characterized by faith in God upon whom they 
^^call." 

In Cain we find thefoUovnng characteristics : — 

1. A haughty spirit, manifested by his sacrifice of the 
fruits of the ground, in which he refused to confess sin 
and forfeited life, by offering a life to God, as did Abel 
his brother by an act of faith. Even Cain recognizes the 
reasonableness and the need of worship ; but it must be a 
worship that is of the earth, and in which there is no con- 
fession of sin, and no cry for grace and mercy by blood. 
This same spirit was in Adam and Eve, who recognized 
the need of a covering for their nakedness {sin)^ and so 
made themselves aprons of leaves ; not knowing that God 
only could cover them, and that with coats of skins, 
taken doubtless from the first animals ever slain, and 
that for sacrifice. And this characteristic is seen in all 
children of nature, who in their approaches to God 
always come with the fruit of their own labor : even 
when they have a zeal of God, they go about to establish 
their own righteousness (Eom. x. 3). 

2. A jealous hatred of Abel, who ^^ by faith offered 



92 ^^ IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. " 

a more excellent sacrifice tlian Cain, by which he obtain- 
ed witness that he was righteous" (Heb. xi. 4). This 
hatred ended in the murder of x^bel. " And where- 
fore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, 
and his brother's righteous" (1 John iii. 12). This Cain- 
spirit is seen in the whole line of unbelievers unto 
this day. It refuses to obey God itself, and hates those 
who do. Cain hated Abel ; Ishmael hated Isaac, and 
mocked him (Gen. xxi. 9) ; Esau hated Jacob, and would 
have slain him, because his brother received the blessing 
which he so lightly threw away for a mess of pottage 
(xxv. 32, 34 ; xxvii. 41) ; the children of Jacob hated 
Joseph, and sold him into Egypt (xxxvii. 4, 28) ; and 
this Cain-spirit culminated in the hatred by the world of 
the Christ, the true Abel, who offered himself a sacrifice 
for sin ; and they with wicked hands slew the Lord of 
glory, and hanged Him on a tree (John xv. 25 ; Acts ii. 
23 ; iii. 15 ; v. 30). And unto this day does Cain hate 
all those who, denying human righteousness, come to 
God through the acceptable and accepted oflFering of 
Christ. This is the ^^ way of Cain" (Jude 11), which 
prefers reason to revelation, self-righteousness to that 
which is by faith in the appointed Sacrifice, and which 
hates those who through the obedience of faith are ac- 
cepted of God. 

3. Another characteristic of Cain and his spiritual de- 
scendants is seen in the fact, that when he went out from 
the presence of the Lord he at once huilded a city (Gen. 
iv. 16, 17). It may not seem to have special significance 
in the eyes of many, but '^ city building" and city living, 
with the '' fine arts" of life, have been the characteristics 
of the ^^ world" since the days of Cain. It is ^^the 
pride of life" (1 John ii. 16), which is not of the Fa- 
ther, but of the world. This is the more striking when 



STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOOKS. 93 

we consider that the righteous line through Abel-Seth 
were ever dwellers in tents, as were Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob ; because they were pilgrims and strangers 
in this world, not seeking permanent habitations here, 
but seeking a city which hath foundations, whose 
builder and maker is God (Heb. xi. 8 — 10). That this 
is no fanciful observation may be abundantly shown from 
the fact that when the children of Israel went into the 
promised land for permanent (?) dwelling, and occupied 
and built cities, it was an ordinance with them from God 
that once every year all born Israelites must needs move 
out of their houses, and erect temporary booths, and 
dwell in them seven days, that they might not forget 
that here they had no continuing city (Lev. xxiii. 42, 43)- 
An interesting account of the revival of this custom is 
foand in ]Nehemiali viii. 14 — 18, after the return of the 
people to the land and city of God ; the result of which 
was that the people of God had great gladness. 

4. The Cainites were the first to give themselves up 
to the pursuit of pleasure and the mechanical arts, with 
the view of gratifying the flesh and getting possession of 
the world (Gen. iv. 21, 22). Pleasure and possession 
are evermore the objects of the Cain-spirit. In God they 
have neither ; and so they seek them in this world. In 
the pursuit of these they gave rein to the imaginations 
of their heart, and sought them in corruption and blood 
until the whole earth was filled with their violence (Gen. 
vi. 5 ; Matt. xxiv. 37, 38). This same spirit came out to 
the fun in the vile cities of the plain, which God over- 
threw (Gen. xviii. 20 ; xix. 24, 25 ; Luke xvii. 28, 29). 
Even so it is now with the Cain- world which rejects God 
and his Christ, — it " seeks out many inventions'' (Eccl. 
vii. 29), — gains possession of the world, and eats, drinks, 
and makes merry (Luke xii. 18-— 20), not knowing that 



94 ^^i:^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

God says to sucli now (as in the days of Noah and Lot), 
" Thou fool^ this night thy soul shall be required of 
thee." 

5. We find violence and murder reappearing in the 
Cain line in the sixth generation, when Lamech cele- 
brated in the first poetry ever written his vengeance in 
the slaying of a man (Gen. iv. 23). 

6. We see also in this line the introduction of polyg- 
amy, or the taking of more than one wife. Some have 
supposed that the murderous spirit and deeds of Lamech 
were developed in connection with his violation of the 
divine law of marriage, and the subsequent quarrels in 
his own unhallowed domestic relations. But we need 
not pursue this line of suggestion further. 

Let us turn briefly to the righteous branch of the fam- 
ily of Adam. (1.) In Abel we discover the righteous- 
ness of faith — the recognition of his own sin, and of the 
justness of the sentence of death ; his consequent readi- 
ness to draw near to God with an offering of divine ap- 
pointment, in which the blood both expiates the sin and 
reconciles to God (Gen. iv. 4 ; Heb. xi. 4). (2.) As 
already intimated, in Seth's time (who was in the place 
of Abel), men — his descendants — both called upon the 
name of the Lord, and called themselves by his name 
(iv. 26). Here is the distinct confession of God, not 
only as Creator, but as Jehovah (Saviour). All this is 
utterly absent in the annals of Cain's descendants. This 
perhaps was the formal institution of religious service, 
or the public worship of Jehovah. (3.) In Enoch (v. 
22) we find holy communion and companionship with 
God. Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and 
throughout this life of faith he both preached the Gospel 
and prophesied of the final coming of the Lord with his 



STUDY OF THE i:N-DiyiDUAL BOOKS. 95 

saints to judge the world (Jude 14, 15), and received this 
testimony ''that he pleased God" (Heb. xi. 5). Here 
also we find the dreary record of unfailing death broken. 
For by faith '' Enoch was translated, that he should not 
see death." How blessed that God should thus break in 
upon death and snatch his saints from his power ! Thus 
Enoch is the promise of OK'E who also ascended up on 
high to give life to all who, like Enoch, walk with God. 
(4.) In Isoah we see a man who '' found grace in the 
eyes of Jehovah, a just man, and perfect in his genera- 
tions," who also ''walked with God" (Gen. vi. 8, 9). 
In Noah the distinct characteristics of righteousness and 
justice flowing from grace are seen as opposed to the 
natural outcome of man in the Cainite world who 
perished in the flood. (5.) In Abraham we see separa- 
tion from the idolatrous world ; the characteristic of 
faith preeminently illustrated, and the friendship of God 
sealed to man (xii. 1, 2 ; James ii. 23). (6.) Through 
him (Abraham) we see that God is to perpetuate to and 
for Himself a righteous seed in the earth, not by natural 
descent but by spiritual descent ; for we are all the chil- 
dren of God by faith in Jesus Christ, who is the seed to 
whom the promise was given in Abraham (Gal. iii. 16 — 
26). This is sufficient to give us a suggestion of the 
wealth of teaching in Genesis, of the outcome of Adam, 
the parent stock of man, as it is seen by nature and grace. 

Fourth : The types in Genesis are also well worthy 
OUR CAREFUL STUDY. We cauHot do Hiorc than point out 
some of them by way of illustration. 

1. The creation is but a type of God's new creation in 
man, for " if any man be in Christ Jesus there is a new 
creation," or, he is a new creation (2 Cor. v. 17). The 
void and formless earth is but a type of the chaotic state 



96 ^'IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

of man until the Spirit of God broods over him for re- 
generation ; for except a man be born of water and the 
Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 
iii. 3 — 5). The darkness over the face of the void earth 
is but the moral condition of the world until the true 
Light came, which lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world (John i. 5, 9). For " God, who commanded 
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our 
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. iv. 6). And 
what is ^' the day" but the type of that spiritual environ- 
ment that is congenial to the children of God, in which 
also they are commanded to walk ; and what is night 
but that moral condition in which the children of '' the 
wicked one" walk and have their pleasures. " Ye are 
all the children of light, and children of the day ; we are 
not of the night, nor of darkness" (1 Thess. v. 5). Also 
the " night" stands for this present world, which is in 
darkness ; and the " day" for that glorious dawn which 
is soon to arise out of the night of sin and death. " The 
night is far spent, the day is at hand ; let us therefore 
cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the 
armor of light" (Rom. xiii. 12). The planting of the 
earth with seed, that brought forth after its kind, all 
good at the first (Gen. i. 12) ; but afterwards, when sin 
had come in, and the earth was cursed, '^ thorns and 
thistles" (iii. 17, 18) — is but the parable in creation 
which the Master brought out in the parable of tares. 
" The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which 
sowed good seed in his field ; but while men slept, his 
enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. . . . 
The good seed are the children of the kingdom ; but the 
tares are the children of the wicked one" (Matt. xiii. 25, 
26, 38, 39 ; Heb. vi. 7, 8 ; xii. 15). Truth and error 



STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUAL BOOKS. 97 

sown in human hearts bring forth righteousness and sin, 
blessing and cursing. 

The sun, moon, and stars, what are they but great hghts 
in the moral firmament ? Christ is that " Sun of Right- 
eousness that rises with healing in his wings" (Mai. iv. 
2), and that '' day-spring from on high that gives light 
to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, 
to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Lukei. 78, 79). 
The Church is that lesser body that, with borrowed light 
from the Sun of Eigliteousness, looketh forth in the 
morning, " fair as the moon" (Cant. vi. 10), to give light 
to the world during the absence of the sun, " whom the 
heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all 
things" (Actsiii. 21). And the stars are those Christians 
who, in close fellowship with their Lord, are the '^ wise, " 
who ''shine as the brightness of the firmament," and 
turn many to righteousness (Dan. xii. 3) ; they are also 
pastors, the ''angels of the churches," whom Christ 
holds in his right hand (Rev. i. 16, 20). 

2, Adam is a type of Christ : the first Adam, in 
whom all died, the head of the earthly race of men ; the 
second Adam, Christ in whom all are made alive, the 
head of the heavenly race of spiritual men : " and so it 
is written, The first Adam was made a living soul ; the 
last Adam was made a quickening spirit' ' (1 Cor. xv. 45). 
From Adam we inherit by natural generation a natural 
life or soul. In Christ we receive spiritual life, not by 
being born, but by being born again through faith in 
Him (John i. 11, 12). We are the children of Adam by 
nature, but we " are all the children of God by faith in 
Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 26). 

3. Eve, the wife of Adam, taken out of his side and 
made one with him, is the foreshadowing of that spiritual 
Bride of the second Adam — the Church of God ; taken 



98 ^^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'^ 

out of the wounded side of Christ and made one with 
Him. Therefore it is written : ' ' Husbands, love your 
wives ; even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave 
Himself for it. . . . For we are members of his bodj^-, 
of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man 
leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his 
v/ife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great 
mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church" 
(Eph. V. 25, 30—32). Eve is the type of the Church, 
and the institution of marriage is the type of the sacred 
relation between believers and Christ. 

4. The Sabbath is the type of that spiritual rest which 
comes to the soul through the finished work of Christ. 
When God finished the work of creation, and saw that 
all was " YQxj good," '^ He rested on the seventh day 
from all his work which He had made. And God 
blessed the seventh day and sanctified it" (Gen. ii. 
2, 3), But no sooner had He rested from the work of 
creation than He began (because man had sinned) the 
work of redemption ; and this work He continued until 
Jesus Christ finished our redemption, ascended, and sat 
doicn on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Col. iii. 
1 ; Heb. i. 3 ; x. 12), so that we enter no more into that old 
sabbath that commemorates rest from the work of crea- 
tion, but into that sabbath which shows forth the finished 
work of redemption. We cease from the imperfect 
works of the flesh, and enter into rest (sabbath) with 
Christ. '' For we which have believed do enter into 
rest (sabbath). There remaineth therefore a keejoing of 
sabbath [margin] for the people of God. For he that is 
entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own 
works, as God did from his" (Heb. iv. 1 — 11). 

5. The tree of life in the garden clearly shows us 
Christ ; whose flesh we may eat and live, not in the im- 



STUDY OF THE II^DIYIDUAL BOOKS. 99 

mortality of sin, but in the power of eternal life from 
which all sin is excluded (John vi. 53 — 57). The tree 
of knowledge of good and evil is also by antithesis a type 
of Christ. Adam ate of that tree and gained knowledge 
of " good and evil," but from the Devil's point of view ; 
at the same time, sinning, he lost his soul. But now 
Adam's sons may eat of Christ, and gain the knowledge 
of God and the possession of everlasting life. Adam ate 
and died ; we may eat and live. 

6. What do the fig-leaves sewn together and used for 
aprons show, bat the attempt of men to cover the naked- 
ness of their sin with their own works ? and what do the 
coats of skins which God made and gave them instead, 
represent, but the righteousness of God through the 
offering of Christ (Gen. iii. 7, 21) ? 

7. The driving of the pair out of the garden shows 
how, on account of sin, the righteous government of God 
drives iis forth from his presence ; while the promise 
given at the same time shows how we are to come back 
to Him, not through the gates of the old Eden, but 
through that seed of the woman, through Him who says, 
" I am the door." This is further seen, as we have 
already shown, by Abel, who draws near to God, and is 
accepted through the offering of the Lamb, the type of 
Christ, who in the fulness of time was offered for the 
sin of the world (John i. 29). 

8. The flood and the ark are figures of the judgment 
of God against sin, and the way of salvation by Christ, 
who lifts us above the judgment-waters. " God gave 
man the earth, and made him lord over it ; man abused 
the gift and forfeited it, brought a curse upon it. Then 
God opened heaven to man, and a way to it (by the ark 
— Christ) ; and urged man to enter into the kingdom, 
and escape the curse that sin had entailed. Noah entered 



100 '^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

in by faith ; the antediluvians refused. Noah was 
saved ; they perished all." So is it now ; Christ is both 
our ark and our Noah, '' that whosoever believe th in Him 
should not perish, but have eternal life'' (John iii. 16). 
The flood and the ark also tell of regeneration, that pass- 
ing from the old world of nature to the new world of 
covenant, from death to life, by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead. In fellowship with Him we are 
on the resurrection side of the world. " The like figure 
whereunto (Noah and the ark), even baptism, doth also 
now save us, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 
iii. 20, 21). Time and space fail us to go further. It 
will be seen that these things which we have pointed out 
are not striking coincidences, but types expounded and 
interpreted by the Scriptures themselves. 

1 have spoken incidentally of many characters that 
exhibit striking truths in their lives — Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, Joseph, Ishmael, Esau, Lot, and others ; and let 
it not be supposed that the lines of teacliings we have so 
briefly traced out are all that Genesis contains.. For 
indeed every chapter and every incident in the wonderful 
histories therein recorded reveal truth to those who have 
eyes to see it. But this may suffice to lure you on to 
study, and to search after truth for yourself, which easily 
yields itself to those who hunger after it, and use it not 
for pride but for edification. 

Of course I do not pretend to have given a full treat- 
ment of this wonderful book. Other lines of thought 
still more wonderful may be started and carried out. 
All I hoped to do was to give a hint as to its exhaustless 
fulness. It is not possible to follow out^ in this little 
volume, in the other books even so slight a treatment as 
we have given to Genesis. Yet I assure my readers, that 



STUDY OF THE IN-DIVIDUAL BOOKS. 101 

each of them is crowded in like manner with spiritual 
teachings. Each book is a fruitful bough, laden with 
richest spiritual food, and is accessible to all who will 
patiently turn over its leaves and seek for it. For ex- 
ample : 

Exodus is the book of .redemption ; showing us how 
God, hearing the cry of his people, by reason of their 
burdens, "came down" to save them, and sent his 
apostle Moses (Heb. iii. 1) into Egypt for them, and 
brought them out with a high hand, not by might only, 
but by blood, which, stood between him and the destroyer, 
even as Christ our passover is slain for us, and his blood 
stands between us and the sentence of death. 

Leviticus is the book of worship ; and shows how 
guilty man can draw near to God by blood in the hands 
of an High Priest (Heb. iii. 1), who goes into the hoHest 
of all, there to appear in the presence of God for us. 

Numbers is the book of wilderness wanderings, show- 
ing us how by unbelief and wilful provocations the peo- 
ple knew God's breach of promise (Num. xiv. 34), and 
entered not in because of unbelief (Heb. iii. 7 — 19). 

Deuteronomy shows us how God cares for the weKare 
of his people, and instructs them in courses of conduct for 
life in Canaan, giving promises and warnings, setting 
forth death and hfe, and urging them to choose life. 

Joshua shows us the victories of faith, and illustrates 
that good fight, and how we are to lay hold on eternal 
life, by taking possession of that which is given to us in 
covenant relation. 

Judges shows us the f aihire of God's people in covenant 
relation, through affiliation with the unbelieving world. 



103 ^^m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. 



)? 



And so we might go through these books, plncldng 
out the central truth from each, and then following out 
also the many incidental and collateral truths. But our 
purpose is not to do this for you, but only to put you in 
a way of doing it for yourself. In order, however, to 
help you in this direction we have added in an appendix 
a key word table to all the books of the Bible, which we 
commend to your attention. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Unity of plan and development of doctrine — The grand sweep of 
events recorded — Structure and characteristics — Four gospels not 
accidents, but to give a rounded view of Christ — Matthew' s Gospel 
in which Jesus is seen as the King — Mark's Gospel, in which Jesus 
is seen as the Servant of his Father— Luke's Gospel, in which 
Jesus is seen as the brother and fellow of Mankind — John's Gos- 
pel, in which Jesus is seen as the Eternal Son of God. 

In the New Testaivient we find the same unitj in 
plan, the same diversity in method and style, the same 
individuality and special characteristics of the different 
books, that met us in the Old Testament. Especially 
do we recognize the same Spirit breathing through and 
animating all its parts, and the same beautiful progress 
and development of doctrine and revelation. 

The sweep of events in the l^ew Testament is grand 
and inspiring beyond measure. We behold in it, or 
rather through it, the Eternal Word in the bosom of the 
Eternal Father, the creator and sustainer of all worlds 
(John i. 3 ; Col. i. 16, 17). In that distant and ever 
present eternity we also behold Him the covenant Head 
of the redemption race ; a Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world (Rev. xiii. 8). In the fulness of time He 
comes forth, made flesh under the law, and born of a 
woman (Gal. iv. 4), and laid in a manger, wrapped in 
swaddling-clothes (Luke ii. 7), thus, by incarnation tak- 
ing hold on the seed of Abraham (Heb. ii. 14 — 16), and 
human nature (Phil. ii. 7, 8). 



104 ^^m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

Then we get a glimpse of his child-life. In his entry 
upon public ministry. He is introduced to the world in 
his redemptive character as the Lamb of God (John i. 
29). And jfinally his earthly ministry closes, by his bear- 
ing our sins in his own body upon the tree ; suffering, 
the Just for the unjust ; being delivered for our offences, 
and redeeming us unto God with his precious blood 
(1 Pet. ii. 24 ; iii. 18 ; i. 18, 19 ; Eom. iv. 25). 

He reappears in resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 4) ; and after 
showing Himself to many witnesses ascends again into 
heaven, taking with Him his redeemed and glorified 
human nature (Acts i. 11). There He appears in the 
presence of God in our behalf, having with his own 
precious blood obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb. 
ix. 12, 24). There we behold Him again, having purged 
our sins, sitting down on the right hand of the Majesty 
on high, with all the angels of God worshipping Him 
(Heb. i. 3, 6). 

There He will remain until He comes again a second 
time, without sin unto salvation (Heb. ix. 28), when He 
will raise the sleeping saints, change the living, and catch 
up all into heaven (1 Thess. iv. 13 — 18), where his glori- 
ous kingdom will be organized (Rev. iv.). With Him, in 
glory, his saints will wait until all the judgment woes 
upon an unbelieving world are poured out. Then He 
goes forthwith his '^ called, and chosen, and faithful" 
ones to make war with the Beast, and overcome him 
(Rev. xvii. 12 — 14). Then the remnant of God's people 
are called out of Babylon, and the great city cast down 
(Rev. xviii.). 

Then comes the magnificent and glorious consumma- 
tion — the marriage of the Lamb to his redeemed and 
sanctified Bride. After casting into the pit the Beast 
and False Prophet, and the binding of Satan with a 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 

great chain, and casting him into the bottomless pit, the 
millennium is ushered in (Rev. xix., xx.). Then one 
more last struggle with the Devil (who has been released) 
and the deceived of the nations, the final and complete 
overthrow of Satan, final judgment, and punishment of 
the impenitent dead (Rev. xx. 7 — 15). Then the end of 
this dispensation, and the beginning of another, viz. : the 
new Heaven and new Earth, with the city of Grod com- 
ing down, and God dwelling there with men below 
(Rev. xxi., xxii.). A more magnificent panorama of 
events could not be brought before the mind, heart, and 
imagination of man. 

Intermediately we witness the descent of the Spirit on 
the day of Pentecost, and the gathering of the Church of 
God by the preaching of the Gospel. All this, together 
with the planting and training of the Church, is drawn 
out in the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles. 

Looking now to the structure and characteristics of the 
New Testament, we have before us : first, the four Gos- 
pels, or rather the four accounts of the life and ministry 
of our Lord by the Apostles and Evangelists, Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John. These four books have been 
aptly likened to the four foundation-stones upon which 
the Church of God rests. While the Acts of the Apos- 
tles show us the Church in course of construction, the 
Epistles are the books of divine counsel to the gathered 
Church, and the Revelation is the drawing aside of the 
curtain to give us a view of the Church in glory. 

The question is often asked why there should \)QfouT 
accounts of the life of our Lord instead of one, I think 
it is apparent why the Gospels were written just as they 
were. The life and portrait of Jesus are much more 
perfectly presented under the fourfold aspect which we 



106 *^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

get now than we could have had them by means of a 
single account. These Gospels are both independent of, 
and interdependent upon, each other. That is, each 
Evangelist gives a peculiar prominence to special features 
of the life and ministry of Christ, while they all give 
things in common. 

We may illustrate it in this way. Alexander Hamil- 
ton was a man of varied genius. Plis different character- 
istics impressed different men. Now, suppose one biog- 
rapher should say, in writing the life of Hamilton, I 
mean to bring to the foreground the military chieftain / 
and so Mobile his great abihties as a statesman, as a finan- 
cier, and his pre-eminent qualities as a man, are all 
spoken of, still his military career is the special feature 
of the book. Another friend writes, and he brings to 
the front the statesman. Still another writes, and he 
brings out in strongest relief the financier j and yet 
a fourth one writes, and while he does ample credit to 
all his other characteristics, he makes the man himself 
the great feature of his book. It is readily seen how 
such a fourfold view would give us the best idea of the 
common subject of the memoirs. So it is with the 
different records of the life of Christ. 

Or take another illustration. A figure reflected in the 
mirror shows the flat shape of the side presented to the 
mirror. But by an arrangement of concentric rairrors 
the image presented is brought into the centre in all its 
varied and full proportions. The Gospels are the concen- 
tric mirrors by means of which we are enabled to see the 
full and perfect image of Christ at every point of sight. 
For instance : 

Matthew presents Jesus from the Jewish or Messianic 
point of view, as if he had a special desire to show the 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 107 

readers of his Gospel that elesus was indeed the Messiah, 
and the true Lord and King long promised by Moses and 
the Prophets. So, at the very ontset, in looking at the 
genealogy of Matthew, we discover that it goes back only 
to DavM and Abraham, as if to show first that He was 
the promised seed of Abraham, and of the royal stock of 
David ; for from those two heads, Abraham and David, 
the Messianic promises proceed. Again the character of 
Jesus is pre-eminently kingly in Matthew's Gospel. In- 
deed, the term " the kingdom of heaven" is peculiar to 
this Gospel. The magi came seeking Him that was 
'' born King of the Jews." In reading Matthew's Gos- 
pel we want to keep this fact in mind, the Christ is here 
the Messiah and the promised King. I have written 
over the top of Matthew's Gospel on the upper margin, 
in my Bible, the following : 

" Behold, a KING shall reign" (Isa. xxxii. 1). 
'' Son and Lord, according to promise." 
" Abraham's Son and David's Lord." 

The symbol for Matthew's Gospel is that of the LION, 
type of this kingly character (Gen. xlix. 9 ; Eev. v. 5). 

Makk shows us Jesus from an entirely different point 
of view. There is not the least foundation for the idea 
that Mark's Gospel is but an abridgment of Matthew's. 
In Mark, we have no genealogy ; but forthwith we see 
Jesus here as the friend and helper of man. In the very 
first chapter He enters upon his ministry, and we see 
Him working miracles of compassion and mercy. In 
this character of compassionate helper of man. He is seen 
throughout the book. He is never once spoken of as 
King or Lord until after his resurrection. In this Gos- 
pel we see Him as the SERVANT of HIS FATHER, 



108 ^^I]^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

coming '^ not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
to give his life a ransom for many" (x. 45). This book 
is crowded with miracles, and radiant with minute details 
that show his tender and compassionate heart. Meek 
and lowly does this Divine Servant appear, wholly unsel- 
fish in his desire to meet and serve the need of man. 
He who would learn the secret of true service, and be 
qualified for it, let him study Jesus in the Gospel of 
Mark. I have these lines on the upper margin of this 
Gospel in my Bible : 

" Behold my SERVANT !" (Isa. xlii. 1). 
'^ Christ, the Servant of his Father, and the One 
M^ho meets men's need." 

The OX is the true symbol of this Gospel, as it is a 
type of Christ's character in patient service. 

LrxE gives us still another and very striking view of 
Christ. Here we have a detailed account of his human 
nature ; and in the genealogy we see Him linked, not to 
Abraham and David, but his kinship to man as such is 
seen,, and his descent from Adam is brought before us. 
He is not here Messiah, but the Son of Man^ the Saviour 
of the world. In all this Gospel we find Christ in his 
broad human relationships. His kingly character does 
not so much appear as his great human heart. He is 
" the Friend of publicans and sinners" (vii., xv.). He 
manifests God's love to the lost sheep, and to the prodigal 
sinner who had gone into a far country. In Matthew 
He is kin to them that are nigh ; in Luke, to them that 
are far off. Indeed, we see Him entering into the world 
here in the midst of Gentile conditions, at the time of 
the taxing, during the reign of a Gentile power, etc. In 
Matthew we read of a ^' certain ]ci7ig who made a mar- 



THE KEW TESTAMENT. 109 

riage for his son" (xxii. 1). In Luke the same parable is 
given with this formula, " a certain man made a great 
supper," etc. (xiv. 16). In Matthew it is the ''king- 
dom of heaven," which is the formulation of the Jewish 
idea ; in Luke it is the " kingdom of God,^^ which is the 
universal idea. The former designation is peculiar to 
Matthew ; the latter, while it occasionally appears in 
Matthew, is lifted into great and conspicuous promi- 
nence in Luke. Luke is the first to bring out the fact 
that the superscription of the cross was written in the 
Greek and Latin as well as in the Hebrew, as if to certi- 
fy the universality of the atonement. This fact does not 
appear in Matthew, as it is foreign to the author's pur- 
pose ; so neither does it in Mark ; but it appears in 
John, as his Gospel too is a presentation of the Saviour 
in his universal character. It seems also pecuharly meet 
that this Gospel to the world, to universal man, should 
be written by a Gentile, and not a Jew. I have written 
on the upper margin of my Bible over Luke's Gospel 
these lines : 

" Behold the MAN !" (John xix. 5). 
" Christ the Son of Man, in his service and ministry 
of grace to and among men." 

''The proper symbol for the Gospel of Luke is the 
MAN, as a type of Christ's broad human relations." 

JoHJsr gives us still another and different view of Christ. 
Here we also have a genealogy, but differing vastly from 
that of Matthew or Luke. John does not trace his 
human descent according to the flesh, but soars away 
into eternity, and plucks Him, as it were, from the very 
bosom of God, and writes his history, as He is, the eter- 
nal, uncreated Word of God, who in the beginning was 



110 ''m THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

with God, and wlio is God. Here He is the Light of 
the world, the Way, the Teuth, and the Life. We see 
Him clothed in the flesh ; at the same time we are as- 
sured that, though the Son of Man, his (then) present and 
true place ^' is in heaven" (iii. 13). Here Christ asserts 
the truth of his oneness with God in all the breadth of 
that doctrine : ^' I am from above ;" ^^ I am not of this 
world" (viii. 23). ^' I and my Father are one" (x. 30). 
'' He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (xiv. 9). 
Here He asserts that ^' all men should honor the Son, 
even as they honor the Father" (v. 23). In John the 
great '^I AM" of the burning bush reappears ; this 
time not in a bush but in human nature. But every- 
where He asserts Himself, and fills out the '' 1 AM " 
name thus : ^' I AM the bread of life" (vi. 35). '' 1 AM 
the light of the world" (viii. 12). '^ Before Abraham 
was, I AM " (viii. 58). '' I AM the door" (x. 9). " I 
AM the good shepherd" (x. 11). ^' I AM the resurrec- 
tion and the life" (xi. 25). '' I AM the way, the truth, 
and the life" (xiv. 6). ''1 AM the true vine" (xv. 1). 
In the Book of Revelation John still further gives us this 
truth : '^ I AM Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" 
(Rev. i. 8, 11). " I AM He that liveth" (i. 18). " I 
AM the bright and morning star" (xxii. 16). Indeed, 
Jesus is exhibited in John's whole Gospel in the light of 
a divine egoism which on any other assumption than that 
He is God manifest in the flesh would be intolerable and 
monstrous. Here we find His self-assertion everywhere. 
'^ Yerily, verily I say unto you," is peculiar to John. 
If you are curious to note the difference in the effect 
produced on the mind by the use of the personal pro- 
nouns, in the mouth of the speaker, such as ^' I," '^ me," 
'' my,"^^ mine," you need go no farther than to com- 
pare John xvi., where Jesus speaks of himself forty-six 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ill 

times, using the pronoun ^^ I " thirty times, aiid '' Me" 
and " Mine" sixteen times ; and the twenty-ninth chap- 
ter of Job, w^here Job speaks of himself fifty times, 
using the same pronouns as above. 

How differently these egoists affect us ! In the one 
case we bow with reverence in the presence of One who 
has the right in Himself to say * * I ;" and who, if He 
did not thus assert Himself, would leave us disappointed, 
and with the feeling that there was something lacking in 
Him. In the other case, we are filled with mingled feel- 
ings of pity and surprise at what seems a vain and weak 
selfishness in a man of such genuine and sincere piety as 
Job. In a word, John brings out the divine nature and 
character of Jesus Christ, and we behold '^His glory, 
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth" (i. 14). Over the upper margin of John's Gospel, 
in my Bible, I have written : 

'' Behold the LAMB OF GOD !" (John i. 29). 
'^ Jesus, the Son of God, seen in the moral glory 
of his person and work." 

The EAGLE is the symbol for John's Gospel — fitting 
type of his divinity. 

Thus the four Gospels give us four phases of the life 
of Him who is both Saviour and Lord (Bev. iv. 6, 7).* 

The Acts of the Apostles. — Dean AKord calls this 
book the Gospel of the Bisen Jesus, or the Gospel of the 
Holy Ghost. In this book we see what Jesus continued 
to do from heaven, as in Luke's Gospel narrative, who 
also is the author of this book, we saw what Jesus " began 



* For a fuU and helpfnl discussion of the fonr phases of the 
Gospels, see Differences of the Four Gospels, by Andrew Jukes. 



112 "IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

both to do and teach" (i. 1). In this book we see Jesus 
ascending on high (i. 9) where He is exalted to be a 
Prince and a Saviour (v. 31), and from thence shedding 
down the Holy Ghost (ii. 1 — 4, 33). The Gospels show 
us the foundation corner-stones of the great edifice which 
God is building for an habitation for Himself through 
the Spirit (Eph. ii. 22) ; the Acts give a history of the 
gathering in and edifying together of those living stones 
(1 Pet. ii. 5). In other words we see in the , Acts the 
Church of God in process of construction. 

The Epistles. — The third main division of the New 
Testament, viz. : the Epistles, have another and distinct 
relation. The Gospels show us the foundations of the 
building. The Acts show us the Church of God gath- 
ered. The Epistles give us God's instruction to his 
Church — most of those of Paul being addressed to 
organized churches ; the Epistles of Peter, James, John, 
and Jude being addressed either to individuals or to the 
Christians scattered abroad. The pastoral Epistles of 
Paul to Titus and Timothy have especial reference to the 
ministers of God's house. The great Epistle to the 
Hebrews is an earnest warning against unbelief, and an 
exhortation to faith and steadfastness ; and is one of the 
most precious books in the Bible ; one that every Chris- 
tian who wants to be rooted and grounded in the faith 
ought to become intimately acquainted with. 

The Revelation. — Undoubtedly the sublimest and 
most thrilHngbook in the Bible is also certainly the most 
neglected one. Yet it is the only book that pronounces 
special blessing to the reader and hearers of its wondrous 
words (i. 3). The objection so often made that the book 
is so mysterious and figurative that it is not possible for 
the common reader to understand it, and that therefore 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 113 

it is not profitable to read it, onght not to weigh a mo- 
ment against the opening blessing upon the reader and 
hearers of its words. I read the book for years without 
any particular effort to understand it, except as it might 
interpret itself to me. And 1 wish devoutly and hum- 
bly to leave my testimony, that no book in the Bible is 
more stimulating than this. However it may be inter- 
preted or misinterpreted, certain it is that we have here 
the story of the most startling events soon to take place 
which the world has ever witnessed ; events in which all 
the intelligent powers of the universe — of earth, hell, and 
heaven — are engaged. 

Certain it is, that every one of us will be an actor in 
some part of that awful and glorious tragedy. Christ 
and his Church will be victors over all the evil forms op- 
posed to them. The complete overthrow of sin and 
Satan ; the resurrection and glorification of the blood- 
washed Church ; the establishment in and on a regener- 
ated earth of the Kingdom of the Most High God — are 
here set forth. It is not my province in this httle volume 
to attempt an interpretation of the book ; but I feel the 
fire of enthusiastic anticipation kindling within me as I 
think of these things which must shortly come to pass. 
I simply indicate my belief that we are now, historically, 
in what we may properly call the Laodicean age of the 
Church (iii. 14 — 22) : and that at any moment the sub- 
lime events recorded in what remains of the book may 
begin to be fulfilled. And when once this fourth chap- 
ter opens, the prophecy of the rest of the book will be 
fulfilled in such rapid succession that not more than seven 
years will elapse before the whole will be consummated. 
I do not pretend to know when the astonishing prophetic 
events will begin to be unfolded in actual history ; but 



114 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'^ 

only give it as my judgment that '' the time is at hand ;" 
and urge that God's people be found watching, for we 
know not the day nor the hour in which our Lord will 
come. I would give two passages from this book as 
motto texts for all Christians : " Behold^ I stand at the 
door a/nd 'knock : If any moM hear my voice am^d open 
the door^ I will come in to him^ and sup with him and 
he with J/^" (iii. 20—22); and ''He which testifieth 
these things saith : Surely I come quickly / Amen. 
Even so come^ Lord Jesus^^ (xxii. 20).* 



* For the key-notes of tlie books of the Bible in their order, see 
Appendix. 



CHAPTER X, 

LACK OF INTEREST IN BIBLE STUDY. 

The '^reason why" easily explained — Must be studied if we are to be 
healthful and strong Christians — Surface gold and hid treasure — A 
family ornamental piece of furniture — Ignorant reverence and 
reverent ignorance — Why it is a dull book to some— An answer — 
Indolence and lack of interest in the subject-matter of the Bible. 

'' Ye do err," said Christ, " not knowing the Script- 
ures nor the power of God." Christians are more 
exposed to the assaults of Satan and the sin of unbelief 
through ignorance of the Scripture than from any other 
cause ; and yet it is a sad fact that to very many of God's 
people Bible-reading is a disagreeable task. The blessed 
book is taken up reluctantly, and laid down gladly. 
Next to the question, How best to study the Bible, I am 
often asked, " Why is it that 1 do not love to read my 
Bible ?" I think it is easy to answer this question ; and, 
before trying to give some practical hints and suggestions 
on Bible-reading, it may be well to call attention to some 
facts bearing upon it, that need to be looked squarely in 
the face. You may not have thought of them yourself, 
or had your attention called to them by others. 

It is probably true that the Bible is the hest Tcnown^ 
and, at the same time, the least understood^ book in the 
world ; for the reason that it is the most read and least 
studied of all books. There are vast numbers of Bible- 
readers or mis-readers, but comparatively few Bible 
students. Yet, if the faith of the Christian is to be 
strong and vigorous ; if our Christian lives are to be 



116 '^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

stalwart, pure, and holy, abounding in the fruit of the 
Spirit, they must rest upon and be developed by means 
of an intimate and loving acquaintance with the Word 
of God. What says Jude ? " But ye, beloved, building 
up yourselves on your most holy faith [rooted and built 
up in Him, and stablished in the faith — Col. ii. 6], pray- 
ing in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of 
God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ 
unto eternal life" (Jude 20, 21). It is absolutely impos- 
sible for any one who is not intimately acquainted with 
the Word of God, to attend practically to such exhor- 
tations as the foregoing ; for the substance, as well as 
knowledge of these things, and all of them, are found 
only in its sacred pages. 

There is, it is true, upon the surface of the Word of 
God so much of truth — and saving truth too — that he 
who runs may read and be saved. And yet there is 
''hid treasure" in the Bible, lying deep beneath the 
surface, unseen and unpossessed by the careless and 
superficial reader. Such a reader may find enough of 
this heavenly gold even on the surface to keep him from 
spiritual pauperism ; but if he does not dig for hid treas- 
ure, he will never become opulent in the truth. I wish, 
therefore, to excite in you spiritual cupidity for the 
hidden treasure of God's Word — hidden, not in the sense 
that there is anything beyond the understanding of the 
unlearned ; not because God does not wish you to know 
and have the best things ; but hidden because you are 
careless and indolent, because you do not read your Bible 
with the same attention and interest that you give to 
text-books used in pursuit of human learning. If you 
are in doubt as to what 1 mean by careless and superficial 
reading of the Bible, I will try to make my meaning 
plain to you in a following chapter. 



LACK 0}f IlyrTEREST IK BIBLE STUDY. 117 

There are few lioiiseholds in wliich there is not a 
family Bible, but generally it will be found to be a huge, 
cumbersome volume, lying upon the centre-table. It is 
never read, and but rarely opened. It has a family 
record in it, and is reckoned valuable on that account. 
It may contain the family photographs, and so be prized 
on that account ; but it is practically of no use, as a 
JBible, to any one in the house. It is not bought to be 
read, but because it would not be quite respectable not to 
have it in the house. In fact, it is a piece of ornamental 
furniture. It is to be feared that if many families in 
our Christian land, in which the parlor Bible may be 
found, were citizens of Turkey, the Koran would occupy 
a similar place in their house. Besides the family Bible, 
it may be, you have one of those small-print, gilt-edged, 
gold or brass-clasped Bibles, which somebody gave you 
on your birthday, or as a reward of merit, or for a philo- 
poena present ; and it is laid away in your top bureau- 
drawer, or on your dressing-case, not for convenient, 
daily use, but because it is nice to have one " handy" in 
case you should want to refer to some passage, or to look 
up the minister's last text. Of course, this is not true 
of all families, or of all '^ professors," but it is true of 
too many. 

Among many nominal Christians the Bible is held in 
a kind of ignorant reverence, or reverent ignorance, or 
both. There is a traditional respect and superstitious 
veneration for it. They believe it is the Word of God, 
and would be shocked to have their faith in it ques- 
tioned ; but they have not come to know and love its 
blessed contents from personal and prayerful acquaint- 
ance with it. Indeed with many it is a mere fetish. 
I remember, when I was a boy, if I had been unusually 
naughty or disobedient during the day, and my con- 



118 *'IK THE yOLUME OF THE BOOK/' 

science was troubling me — though I had no real fear of 
God — when night came I used to take a Bible, and put 
it under my pillow open, or lay it on a table near the 
head of my bed, with a feeling that somehow 1 should 
be safer for its proximity. I am inclined to think 
there is a good deal of that kind of reverence for 
God's Word. We laugh at the ignorant Romanists for 
wearing an amulet or charm about their necks ; and yet 
there are many Protestants who make an amulet out of 
the Bible. Manifestly this is not the way we should 
treat the book, which itself cannot give life, but which 
bears witness to Him who is the Light and Life of the 
world (John v. 39). We need a heart-to-heart commun- 
ion with the Son of God through his Word. 

'' I don't like to read the Bible, as 1 am sure I ought 
to. Instead, it often seems dull and uninteresting tp 
me." So say many Christians. ^'What," I of ten re- 
ply, '^ can be the reason of this ? You are interested in 
poetry and fiction ; in an ordinary lecture ; in biography 
and travels ; in history and science. In almost everything 
appertaining to literature you take great interest; and 
your leisure hours are spent in reading an endless variety 
of books — good books, too, for that matter ; but the 
Bible, God's blessed revelation, filled with most won- 
derful treasures of saving knowledge, is counted a dull 
and uninteresting book !' ' 

Why ? I think there are many reasons for it. The 
first one is indolence. You are too indolent to put your- 
self in practical possession of the first principles of Bible 
study. The blame of this lack of knowledge ^' how to 
study the JBible^^ may be partly borne by those whose 
business it is to be teachers of the Word. But it is very 
evident that if you had paid no more attention to the 
study of grammar and mathematics than you do to the 



LACK OF INTEREST 12^ BIBLE STUDY. 119 

study of God's "Word, you would be in practical igno- 
rance of those useful branches of knowledge. And yet 
many of you act as if the mere opening of the Bible, and 
the desultory reading of a chapter here and there, as 
often as your mood prompts you, is enough to give you a 
joyful knowledge of its precious mysteries. Eo pains 
are taken to find out the leading features and great char- 
acteristics of the Bible, which, if they were in your pos- 
session, would lead you out into intensely interesting 
lines of study, and into the most delightful communion 
with God. 

Then, there is a real lach of interest in the siibject- 
matter of the BiMe, Many Christians are more interested 
in their merchandise, their farms, their financial schemes, 
in the rise and fall of stocks, in a proposed journey to 
Europe, in the gaieties of the season, or in something of 
a worldly character, than in the things of the kingdom 
of heaven — the new birth, repentance, faith, the atone- 
ment, the conditions of discipleship, the resurrection of 
the dead, and the life to come, with all its " exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory." They have never really 
taken their position in the world as pilgrims and 
strangers. There is such a lack of practical consecration 
to God that they have not the mind or heart to know 
what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God 
(Eom. xii. 1, 2). 

If you expected to make California your home in the 
next six months, would you not be interested in that 
country ? 1 once knew an old man whose son went out 
to Oregon, where he became prosperous, purchased a 
great farm, and was getting it under magnificent cultiva- 
tion. He often wrote home to his family about Oregon, 
and his prosperity. By and by he sent for his brother 
to come out there and live with him : and then he sent 



120 '^IH THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

for Ms sister and her husband. One by one all the boys 
and their wi^es, and all the sisters and their husbands, 
were settled and prospering in Oregon. That old man 
was far more interested in Oregon than in Indiana, where 
he was born, and had lived all his days. He had many 
books on Oregon ; he studied Oregon, its climate and 
soil, its increasing population, its commerce and pros- 
pects. Presently the son wrote to the old man, '^We 
are coming for you, father. ' ' After that the old man was 
more interested than ever. He talked about Oregon 
more and more, when he went to visit his neighbors or 
his neighbors came to visit him ; he talked to his farm 
hands ; up and down the streets he talked about Ore- 
gon, until some people thought he had well-nigh gone 
crazy. 

Do we not often forget that ^^our citizenship is in 
heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the 
Lord Jesus Christ ' ' ? (Phil. iii. 20). Have we not some- 
times forgotten that He said, ^^ I go to prepare a place 
for you, ' ' and ' ' if I go and prepare a place for yon, I will 
come again and receive you unto myself, that where 
I am, there ye may be also V ' (John xiv. 1 — 3). Oh, 
what interests we have there ! Our children are there ; 
our fathers and mothers, our kindred and friends are 
there ; and every day more are going. Now, our Saviour 
has left us word, ^' Be ye also ready, for in an honr you 
think not I will come for you." Ah, my dear friends, 
why are we not interested in heaven, and in all the 
truth that pertains to heaven ? We should he interested 
in all the way to heaven ; in all the revelation that God 
has made touching our redemption, and our preparation 
for that blessed country. I am sure if Christians were 
really interested in these things — if they esteemed them 
as practical realities, as Moses and Paul did — they would 



LACK OF INTEREST IK BIBLE STUDY. 131 

experience wonderful delight in the study of the 
Bible. 

Not to be interested in Bible study argues a life of 
unbelief and worldliness. It is with such Christians as 
it was with the children of Israel in the wilderness : 
'^ The word preached did not profit them, not being 
mixed with faith in them that heard it' ' (Heb. iv, 2). 
It is unbelief and worldliness on the part of many Chris- 
tians that rob them of a delightful and loving interest in 
God's Word. The flesh and the world have taken the 
place, in their minds and hearts, of God and his salva- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XI. 

BIBLE MIS -READERS. 

Mistakes into which Christians fall in reading or mis-reading their 
Bibles — Fragmentary Readers — Routine Readers — Formal Readers 
— Periodic Readers — Unbelieving Mis-readers— Noted unbelievers 
who ** know the Bible by heart" — A Shallow and False Pretence — 
Spiritual Goliaths — How to slay them — Their stock of knowledge 
— Bible difficulties again. 

There are many wretched habits into which Christians 
allow themselves to fall. They are taken possession of 
by these habits, and not a few are held close prisoners in 
their bonds all their lives. This bondage to bad habits 
in Bible reading accounts very largely for the lack of 
interest and love for the Word of God. If any of my 
readers should recognize themselves in the list of mis- 
readers pointed out in the following pages, I earnestly 
hope they will make a great and determined effort for 
deliverance. 

Follov/ing we give a list — only partial^ — of Bible mis- 
readers : 

(1.) The partial and fragmentary readers. I speak 
now of those who confine their reading to certain por- 
tions of the Bible, to the utter neglect of the larger part 
of it. Some never read the Old Testament Scriptures 
at all, but confine themselves to the New Testament ; 
a-nd some even limit their reading to the Gospels. The 
edges of one's Bible will tell the story pretty well. You 
will see some persons' Bibles well thumbed at the 
Twenty-third Psalm, at the Fifty-third of Isaiah, at the 



BIBLE MIS-READERS. 123 

Fourteenth of John, at the Eighth of Romans, the 
Second of Ephesians, etc. Their reading is scrappy and 
fragmentary. They read over these favorite chapters 
again and again, and the result is that their knowledge 
is one-sided and narrow ; they have no large understand- 
ing of God's will and purposes, because they have not 
read or studied the Bible Gomprehensively. They get the 
measure of truth ; but it is out of its broad relations : 
they receive it through a single chapter, when it might 
stream through whole books. 

(2.) Then there are the routine readers. I refer to 
those who run over so much of the Bible daily or weekly, 
according to the task they have set for themselves. They 
read not so much to get the ' ' sense and understanding' ' 
of the Word (Neh. viii. 8), as to get through with their 
allotted task. I was conversing with a very intelligent 
and conscientious young woman in a New England city, 
not long ago, who was troubled about some difficulties in 
her Christian life. After awhile it appeared to me that 
her difficulties grew largely out of ignorance of the will 
of God, as plainly revealed in the Scriptures. So I said 
to her : " My dear friend, I am afraid you do not read 
your Bible much, else you would not be in difficulty on 
this point. " " Why,' ' she said, ' ' 1 have read it daily ever 
since I was fourteen years old. I began then to read 
two chapters every day, and five on Sundays ; in this 
way I read the Bible through every year." To her 
great dismay, I replied : " Ah ! that is the trouble with 
you ; you have not been reading your Bible at all ; you 
have been reading •two chapters every day and five on 
Sunday ; just reading chapters, chapters, chapters — and 
not the Word of God at all. Now tell me, is not that 
the truth ? Do you not hurry through your chapters ? 
and are you not usually glad when the task is done ?" 



124 ^'IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

She admitted tliat it was very much the case with her, 
that the book was dull, and that she rarely found any- 
thing in it to interest her. 

I am persuaded that there are many Christians who are 
content with this chapter-reading routine. No wonder 
the Bible is a dull book, and affords no comfort and 
strength to such readers. They are whipped on to their 
dismal task of chapter-reading by conscience, or to fulfil 
some pious resolution, or some promise. But this is not 
Bible-reading. The Bible is a sensitive book, and when 
you treat it in that way, it shuts itself up and reveals noth- 
ing to you. It is wounded. In other words, the loving 
Spirit, who only can give life and power to the written 
Word, is grieved, and so you have nothing but the empty 
husk of truth, which can neither feed nor delight the 
child of God. 

1 have to-day received a long letter from my dear 
wife : it is about home and the children ; it contains 
many things very precious to me ; it is the outbreathings 
of a faithful wife's loving heart toward her absent hus- 
band. Do you think I took up that letter, hastily 
counted the pages, and then sat down with a weary sigh 
to read it as a task^ saying to myself ? — ^' Oh, dear me ! 
there are six closely written pages ! I suppose I must 
read that letter through : it is my duty ; and I want to 
do my duty." Should I have treated my good wife's 
letter so ? And if she 'knew that I received and read it 
thus, do you suppose she would thereafter have sent me 
two or three such letters a week ? I trow not. She 
would have been grieved and hurt, and at best would 
have only written me formal letters. And yet that is 
the way many Christians treat God's loving Word to 
them ; they read it as though they had no ^personal 
interest in its contents. It is to them an old book, con- 



BIBLE MIS-READERS. 125 

taining the doctrines and facts of their religion ; and not 
the ever-living, perennially new and fresh autograph 
letter of God, warm with the very life and breath of the 
blessed Spirit, desiring to take the things of Christ and 
show them to ns (John xvi. 13). 

(3.) Again, there are \he formal readers of the Bible. 
A father gets np from the breakfast-table, goes with 
wife and children, and possibly servants, into the parlor 
or sitting-room, takes the Bible in hand, opens it at the 
place where the mark is (it is doubtful if he would have 
known where he left off yesterday but for the mark), 
and reads through the chapter, without note, or com- 
ment, or pause, or thought, imless he may turn over to 
see if the chapter be a very long one ; and thus, having 
galloped through the chapter he gallops through his 
prayer, and then gallops off to business. He would 
not quite like to give up family worship, for he was 
brought up to it, and it has become a religious habit with 
him ; and then he is a little superstitious, and fears that 
things would not go right if he neglected it. If you 
were to ask him, an hour afterward, down at the house 
of business, what he had read at morning prayers, he 
would perhaps say : " Well, there ! it is very strange 
that that chapter should pass out of my mind ! Let me 
see ! it was about — let me see ! — I know perfectly well, 
but I can't just recall it at this moment ; but it was some 
place in Isaiah — or Romans— I don't just call to mind 
the chapter now." There is a great deal of that kind of 
Bible-reading, not only at family prayer, but in the so- 
called private devotion of many of God's people. 

If a business man should study the market reports in 
the same way that this formalist studies the Word, he 
would not know half an hour after he had laid the paper 
down whether flour was '' up' ' or ^' down ;" whether his 



126 '^IK THE VOLUME OP THE BOOK." 

stocks were in good condition or bad. But good Chris- 
tian husiness men do not read market reports that way ; 
they attend to what is reported, and they regulate their 
business that day according to the reports they read. 

Now the result is to these formal Bible-readers that 
year after year they go through the Bible, or a portion 
of it, and are but little better acquainted with the blessed 
"Word at the end than at the beginning of the year. They 
have a vague remembrance that they have read certain 
things somewhere in the Bible ; and that is about all. 
And so these formalists add their opinion to that of 
others, and pronounce the Bible a dull book. 

(4:.) Further, there are the periodic and spasmodic 
readers. Not a few professed Christians read their 
Bibles only occasionally, or, as one has said, by " spells ;'' 
that is, they neglect it utterly for days, and weeks, and 
even months, and then suddenly take it up, and for a 
day or two read more or less from it ; but they soon get 
tired, and little by little it is again neglected, and finally 
entirely let alone, until, after the lapse of another long 
interval, it is taken up again. It is not an uncommon 
practise with many, on the first day of the year, to make 
a '^ good resolution" to begin at the beginning and read 
the Bible through. This good resolution usually holds 
out until Leviticus or Numbers is reached : by that time 
the task becomes too wearisome ; the reading is trans- 
ferred to the Psalms, or the New Testament, and this 
bridges over another month. By this time the good 
resolution is entirely exhausted, and the Bible is carefully 
laid aside to be used only as a book of occasional refer- 
ence. Of course, little good can come of such reading. 

It would be easy to lengthen out this list of mis-read- 
ing so-called Bible-readers ; but enough has been said to 
show how badly the Bible is treated by many of its 



BIBLE MIS-KEADERS. 127 

professed friends. I pray God that those into whose 
hands this httle book may fall will speedily break fel- 
lowship with these slighters of the Word of God. 

(5.) Infidel Bible-readers. Let it not be supposed 
that Christians are the only offenders against the "Word 
of God. There are hosts of people who are not Chris- 
tians, who yet profess to be familiar with the Bible ; at 
least, they presume to criticise its contents and call its 
truths into question. It is a common thing to hear of 
some noted unbeliever who " knows the Bible by heart," 
who ^^is a great Bible student," and so forth. Such 
persons get a certain fame in their communities. They 
serve to frighten timid Christians, and to strengthen 
young people, especially young men, in their unbelief. 
They are the sons of Anak that stand on the borders of 
the blessed Bible land as the giants did in the days of 
Caleb and Joshua (JSTumbers xiii. 27 — 29). I speak of 
this class of unbelieving Bible-readers, because we are 
desirous of putting our young friends on their guard 
against them by showing them up in their true character. 
They are, in nine cases out of ten, mere shallow pretend- 
ers, and have no thorough knowledge of God' s Word. 

If Christians in general were themselves more familiar 
with the Bible, they would soon put to silence these 
ignorant scoffers. These men have frequently been 
pointed out to me in the inquiry-room ; they generally 
get hold of some well-disposed " worker" w^ho is not 
thoroughly conversant with the Word, and then, assum- 
ing a great air of knowledge, and of supreme contempt 
for the Bible, begin to propound the difficulties and 
alleged inconsistencies of the Bible to the eager company 
who gather about to " hear the argument ;'' and it is a 
grand triumph for unbelief if the great sceptical '' Bible- 
reader" is enabled to pile up objections and difficulties 



128 '^Ilsr THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.^' 

— quoting now and then a passage, "Qsiially out of ite 
connection — which the unlearned Christian is not able 
to answer or clearly explain, because he has not made 
himself familiar with that part of the Word. Thus the 
infidel's reputation is greatly enhanced, and he becomes 
an oracle of unbelief among the ignorant. In his cir- 
cle he is a Goliath, who daily challenges the hosts of 
Israel, and dares them to come out to battle. But the 
truth is, he is a braggart ; and any David who knows 
where to gather the smooth stones of truth out of the 
water-brooks of the Word can, in the name of the God 
of the Bible, quickly knock him in the head. 

The reason why so many are troubled by these scoffers 
and sceptics, who pretend to a knowledge of God's 
Word, is that they know so little of it themselves that 
they really do not know how to meet them. For the 
most part we have found these unbelievers, who pretend 
to great biblical knowledge, very deficient in minute and 
thorough knowledge of the Scriptures — in fact, amazingly 
so. Their knowledge of the Bible is confined to a few 
passages that have been used by infidels in all ages. For 
instance, they will generally begin with the story of 
Adam and Eve in the garden, flippantly and scoflSngly 
speaking of it as the " snake story ;" then they will 
come to Joshua and the '' sun standing still, ^' and will 
grow very scientific over that ; then they will take up 
Jonah and the whale, and talk about that '^ fish story :" 
they are very witty about the Hebrew children in the 
fiery furnace, Daniel in the lions' den, Lot and the burn- 
ing of Sodom, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. 
Solomon, with his unholy concubinage, David and his sin, 
are sarcastically commented upon, and the question is 
triumphantly asked, " Is that the man after God's own 
heart — an adulterer and a murderer ?' ' Then Pharaoh, 



BIBLE MIS-READERS. 129 

and liow God hardened his heart, will be discussed ; but, 
indeed, we have ah^eady given them quite a large list 
of subjects ! 

Now the fact is they never discovered these difficulties 
by reading the Bible themselves. The probability is 
they found them in Tom Paine, or heard of them 
second-hand from some infidel lecturer, and then hunted 
them up. It is safe to say that not one of them in a 
hundred ever read the Bible through, to say nothing 
here of reverent or even respectful study. If any fairly 
well-instructed Christian should turn upon them, and 
begin to catechise them on the Bible, their mouths would 
be stopped at about the third question. Compared with 
a real Bible student, who has studied the blessed volume 
in its entirety and unity, they know absolutely nothing. 
If a man who liad made no more exhaustive study of 
nature than these so-called critics have made of the Bible, 
should set up to deny the ascertained facts of science, he 
would be laughed out of the community in twenty-four 
hours. 

That there are grave difficulties in the Bible is not 
denied, difficulties growing out of our limited knowledge 
and feeble capacities, difficulties which the most pious 
and most learned have not yet mastered or unravelled, 
difficulties which for ages have engaged the attention of 
the profoundest Bible students. But it does not follow 
that the Bible is not a true and inspired book on that 
account, any more that it follows that nature, with all 
her stores of wonders and mvsteries, is not the work of 
God, because science is not yet able to classify, explain, 
and reconcile every fact and phenomenon. We neither 
deny the divinity of nature, nor the integrity of science, 
because there are unexplained mysteries in the world. 
Why should we say that because there are mysteries as 



130 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

yet unsolved and unexplained in God's "Word tliat it is 
not true, and cannot be ? Indeed, it would be strange if 
there were not mysteries and difficulties in a book pur- 
porting to be a revelation of the being, personality, at- 
tributes, will, and operations, of the everlasting God. 
It is only a flippant and undevout ignorance that cavils 
at these difficulties and falls a-scoffing, where it were 
better if attention were given to the less difficult and 
transparently plain things, and wisdom from on high 
were earnestly and prayerfully sought to study the deep 
things of God. We have met but one of this kind of 
Bible mis-readers who had read the Bible through ; and 
he had done so oiice^ twenty years hefore^ and yet he was 
quite celebrated in his town for having a wonderful 
knowledge of the Bible. In fact, he was a constant 
reader of infidel literature, and was for ever harping on 
difficulties that somebody else had pointed out. 

But now let us have done with these mis-readers. 
Enough has been said of both classes. Christian and in- 
fidel, to put the young Christian on his guard against 
the mistakes which he is more or less liable to fall into, 
and the shallow pretence of those who will seek to over- 
throw his faith. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. 
In the next chapter I hope to call your attention to more 
pleasant thoughts and facts. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOW TO EEAD THE BIBLE. 

Practical Hints— Get a good Bible — Money well invested —"Wide 
reading — Consecutive reading — Kegular reading— Topical reading 
— Kead the Bible as an every-day book — Read it as the Word of 
God to YOU— Read the Bible freely— Mark your Bible— The three- 
fold nature of the Scriptures. 

In the previous chapter I have given some hints on 
Bible mis-readings, hoping that thereby you might avoid 
those errors ; or. that, if you had been so unfortunate as 
to have fallen into any of them, you might at once set 
about getting out of them. But it were useless to point 
out bad habits or wrong ways of reading the Bible if I 
did not put you in the way of bettering your methods. 
I shall, therefore, in this chapter, seek to give you some 
practical hints which, we think, lie at the foundation of 
profitable Bible-reading. 

Tou may think it strange, and perhaps trivial, if at 
the very outset I advise you to get a good Bible. I 
mean now as to its mechanical excellence, — in paper, 
letter-press, and binding. Avoid all varieties of Bibles 
that are printed on very thin, partially transparent paper, 
with small type, and stiff and unyielding covers. God 
has put it into the hearts and heads of the Bagsters of 
London, the Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, the Oxford 
Bible warehouse, and the American Tract Society, to 
make some goodj Bibles, that you can read and study 
without pain and destruction to your eyes, and that you 
can use without fear of spoiling. They are real working 



133 *^IN" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

Bibles, and will stand any amount of thnmbing and 
marking, and general '^ wear and tear." One of these 
Bibles will last you a life-time ; and this is what you 
want — a Bible for every-day use, and one which, through 
daily use, will become familiar to you, and one with 
whose every page you shall, through years of study, 
establish an intimate acquaintance. 

It has been objected that these " fine" Bibles are too 
expensive. Well, that depends on how you estimate 
expense. A few dollars more or less is nothing com- 
pared with the comfort and extra usefulness derived 
from a good Bible. I have known young Christians — 
and old ones too, for that matter — who have said they 
could not afford to buy such a Bible on account of its 
high price (from 5 dollars to 12 dollars) ; and yet they 
could afford to consume that much each month in to- 
bacco-smoke, or spend twice the cost of a good Bible, 
two or three times a year, in " four, six and eight-but- 
ton kids," and in other matters of needless extravagance 
in dress and appetite, without even thinking of the ex- 
travagance, to say nothing of the sin, of such things. 
Yes ! let nie urge you to get a good Bible, although you 
may have an ordinarily good one now. Lay that aside, 
and " get the iest " — a Bagster's or a Teachers' Bible, 
either the American Tract Society's, or Eyre and Sj)ottis- 
woode's, or the Oxford, even if you have to give up 
your cigars, and wear for a year " two-button kids." 

I would now suggest the following as being some of 
the most profitable and pleasant methods and habits of 
Bible-reading. At least I have followed these methods 
for years with untold delight and profit. I would not, 
however, bind you down to these ; modify them for the 
better if you can : 

1. Head the Bible widely, " Eat, O friends : drink, 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 133 

yea, drink abundantly, O beloved !" (Cant. v. 1), should 
be our motto in coming to the Word of God. The Bible 
furnishes spiritual food for the soul ; yea, the best intel- 
lecUial food for the soulful man. Why, if most Chris- 
tians took no more breakfast, especially if that were their 
only meal for the day, tlian they take of Bible, they 
would not have strength to go through their ordinary 
daily duties. If they did not feed the body better than 
they do the soul with the food God has given for it, they 
would be starvelings, walking skeletons. And, indeed, if 
we could see the leanness of many souls — aye, Christians' 
souls — the sight would arouse the pity, if not the con- 
tempt, even of the world. Do not snatch a few verses 
now and then ; but read chapters, many chapters, or 
even a whole book at a sitting. How many of you ever 
did this, even on the Lord's day ? How many of you 
ever read the book of Genesis, or John's Gospel, or the 
Acts, or an Epistle, through, at one sitting ? And yet I 
know Christians who will sit for a half day at a time 
reading history, or biography, or a novel : many even 
read far into the night. You would enjoy no book if 
you read it as some of you read the Bible — a scrap here 
and a scrap there, and occasionally a chapter or two. 

Is it objected that there is no time for such wide read- 
ing ? What a mistake ! One might as well say there is 
no time for eating one's breakfast. But you say, I mtcst 
eat my breakfast. True ! and so I say, if you would 
have life, and have it abundantly, you must read your 
Bibles. I know many men who will read the news- 
paper by the hour who never spend fifteen minutes a day 
with the Word of God ; and many Christian women who 
squander hours every day in matters that, to say the 
least, are of no pressing importance, who cannot find 
time to sit down for an hour to study the Bible. But 



134 ^^1^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

we shoTild maJce time for this duty, or, rather, for this 
sweet privilege. God has said, " Grow in grace, and in 
the knowledge of our Lord " (2 Peter iii. 18). Oh, the 
hours that are dawdled away, while the soul grows lean 
for want of its divinely appointed and provided food ! 

Again, let me urge copious reading. Take great 
draughts of the water of life ; read a whole book, an 
entire Gospel, an Epistle, an historical book, or a prophet. 
Indeed, we cannot get the whole truth except we read 
an entire connection ; at least, not the grand sweep of 
truth that usually marches through a book from begin- 
ning to the end. Many of the common so-called " diflB- 
culties" of the Bible have grown out of the bad habit of 
scrappy and fragmentary reading, especially the habit of 
stopping at the end of a chapter. Remember that the 
division of the Bible into chapters is a human and modern 
work (for convenience of reference) ; and these divisions 
often break into the very middle of a thought, and leave 
us without the connection of truth. By the time we re- 
turn to our chapter -reading, we have lost the impression 
of the previous chapter, and so begin again in the middle 
of a thought. 

2. Consecutive reading is recommended for the same 
reason ; namely, to possess ourselves of the whole truth 
of revelation. "When we remember that the books of 
the Bible are in a large sense interdependent upon each 
other, we recognize, at once, that if we are to really 
understand any one part of the Bible, we must have 
some knowledge of all its parts. Let me illustrate : you 
cannot possibly read Hebrews understandingly without 
knowing Leviticus. You cannot understand the Reve- 
lation without being familiar with many parts of the Old 
Testament. The Epistles of Peter are founded upon the 
sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of Matthew. James' 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 



135 



Epistle is a striking commentary on the fifth, sixth, and 
seventh chapters of Matthew ; for example, the Sermon 
on the Mount. Compare 



James i. 2, with Matt. v. 10-12 





i. 


4, 








V. 


48 




i. 

V. 


5. 
15, 


} 






yii. 


7-12 




i. 


9, 








V. 


3 




i. 


20, 








V. 


22 




ii. 


13, 








V. 

vi. 


7 
14,15 




ii. 


1^26 






vii. 


21-28 



James iii. 17, with Matt. v. 9 



iv. 4, " < 


' vi. 24 


iv. 10, '* 


V. 3,4 


iv. 11, ** 


vii. 1-5 


Y. 2, - ' 


' vi. 19 


V. 10, '* 


' V. 12 


Y.12, - * 


' V. 33-37 



Compare tlie Beatitudes of Matthew with those in 
Eevelation. It seems almost certain that there is a real 
relation between them. Now we do not suppose that 
the ordinar}^ Bible-reader will work out so systematically 
such striking interdependences ; but by consecutive 
reading the mind is stored with the Scriptures to such 
an extent that the remembrance of one Scripture comes 
to the front while reading another kindred to it in 
another part of the Bible. With the general acquaint- 
ance that comes by comprehensive reading (which in its 
turn is only acquired by consecutive reading)^ we are 
enabled to answer many difficulties which cannot other- 
wise be explained ; for " Scripture must explain Script- 
ure" is a true proverb and a canon of interpretation. 1 
keep a little note-book in which I note passages that are 
'' hard to be understood ;" and it gets pretty full some- 
times. By and by, in the course of reading, I come 
across a text that doubtless I have read before, but it 
never striick me before. Now I say, as I think of it, 
^^ Why, that throws light on such and such a passage 
that 1 have in my memoranda of difficult passages !" 
And oftentimes these two will solve another difficulty ; 



136 ^^ IlSr THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. 



>> 



and sometimes a single hour of comparison will almost 
clear my note-book of the accumulated difficulties of 
weeks and months. Certainly it gets filled up again ; 
but again it gets cleared, at least in part. The key is 
sometimes found in some obscure book, or sandwiched 
in between a long list of names. 

One day I brought home to my little girl one of those 
old-fashioned dissected puzzles. She worked at it for a 
long time, and could not put it together. She could not 
make the straight and curved edges of different parts 
match ; and so she declared that they would not fit. 1 
went to her assistance, and, selecting one piece, on 
which the tips of a horse's ears were seen, ^^JSTow," 1 
said, '' let's find the piece that has got the rest of these 
ears on." We did not notice the edges ^ whether they 
were likely to make true joints, but we looked for the 
missing part of the picture ; presently the lower part of 
the ears were found among the mass of pieces, and of 
course the joint was perfect. And so we went on until 
all was joined together. So, in a sense, it is wdth God's 
Word ; it has many contradictory or misfitting passages, 
to the careless, scrappy reader, who does not by consecu- 
tive reading get a knowledge of the whole book. But 
to those who read it through and through, the Bible, 
little by little, comes together with wonderful consis- 
tency and beauty. We may not master the whole book, 
but we shall find it so true to itself, as far as we go, that 
no doubt will be left on our mind as to its divine origin 
and perfect harmony. Indeed, it is this internal and 
constantly appearing incidental evidence of the truth of 
the Word of God, that comes to me in the course of 
reading, which more than all other evidences sets me 
intellectually at rest as to its divine origin. 

In urging you to consecutive reading I am not igno- 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 137 

rant that many good Cliristians do not see the nse of read- 
ing such " dry parts" of the Bible as the minute cere- 
monial laws in Leviticus, and the long genealogical tables 
and other lists of names found in Numbers, Chronicles, 
Ezra, etc. ; and they are disposed to skip them. But 
read them all : you will find much good in so doing ; 
perhaps not at the first reading, or immediately there- 
after ; but, undoubtedly, many things that you read will 
return to bless you after many days. If it is urged that 
the mind cannot retain so much, and necessarily loses in- 
terest in this steady, onward reading, let me say that, 
though the words and facts of the Bible may seem to 
disappear in your memory as water in the sand, they are 
not lost, but are treasured up in the depths of the mem- 
ory, and will reappear at the call of the Holy Spirit, 
whose office work it is to bring them to your remem- 
brance. Of course I do not mean that you are to use 
your Bible in no other way than by marching steadily 
and consecutively through it ; but that, beside special 
study and the reading of favorite portions, this habit is 
to be maintained also. 

3. The Bible should he read regularly, I was not 
long ago troubled with a stubborn attack of nervous 
dyspepsia. Consulting a pliysician, he asked me about 
my habits in eating. He did not object to what I ate, 
but said : " How and when do you eat ? Do you take 
your meals regularly V^ I told him that I did not ; that 
in the press of work I sometimes omitted a meal, and 
sometimes did not get my dinner until late in the after- 
noon, and ate my breakfast any time between 7 and 
li A.M., according as I had been up late at night in the 
inquiry-rooms, or failed to sleep in the earher part of the 
night. ^^ That will never do," said he; ^^you must 
take your meals regularly. Fix your hours, and con- 



138 '^m THE VOLUME OE THE BOOK/' 

form to them. You had better let an inquirer or visitor 
go at your dinner-hour, than allow that important matter 
to pass by ; or you will not be able, by and by, to attend 
to inquirers at all." I found this good advice, and, by 
adhering to it, soon got over my dyspepsia. 

Now I am sure this law will hold good in Bible-read- 
ing. There are some persons who only read their Bibles 
on Sunday : these take a good meal on that one day, and 
then starve or fast all the week ; but that is not well. 
God bade the people gather the manna every day, and 
that regularly^ early in the morning. So I think we 
need to set apart, early in each day, a portion of time 
for our Bible-reading and prayer. If we do not do it 
then, we are apt to let it go by. Many persons spend 
an hour a daj^ on the newspaper, but have not time for 
a few minutes every morning for the Bible. Better 
glance at the paper, and read your morning portion of 
the Word reverently and regularly, than read the paper 
through and only glance at your Bible. Do you say you 
have not time ? Take it ! Time taken for regular Bible- 
reading will in the end save you many hours ; besides, 
it will prepare and strengthen you for the business and 
household cares of daily life. It has been my pleasure 
recently to be the guest of a lady, the mistress of a large 
household, with exacting domestic and social cares and 
responsibilities. But she was very fond of music, and 
had a decided talent for it. She told me that she found 
it necessary to set apart an hour every day for her prac- 
tice, and both her servants and friends knew that she 
would not be disturbed during that hour in the day. 
She told me that domestic and social duties conformed 
to the habit, and she had no trouble. 

Why should not every Christian have ^' one little 
hour," or at least a half -hour, for the Book of books, 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 139 

beside the other odd moments and spare hours ? Were 
we to attend to the important concerns of life, or even 
the more common ones, with as little regularity and sys- 
tem as we attend to the spiritual culture of our priceless 
souls, they would soon go to pieces and leave us in great 
destitution. Even so will the neglect of regularity and 
system in Bible-reading lead to spiritual poverty. We 
may not realize it now ; but the day is fast overtaking 
us when our poverty of soul and lack of heavenly culture 
will be revealed to our shame and loss. 

4, Read your Bible topically. This brings us more 
nearly to the matter of study. By topically reading I 
mean : take up a subject and follow it through from 
Genesis to Revelation. For instance, take the word 
FAITH, and follow it through the Bible with the aid of 
a concordance. You will find about two columns in 
Cruden's Unabridged Concordance devoted to '' faith." 
What a study it is in all its phases — its mighty work- 
ings, its relations to the life that now is and to that which 
is to come ! How inspiring to study the workings of 
faith, as illustrated in the lives of those " who, through 
faith, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of 
weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned 
to flight the armies of the aliens !" (Heb. ii. 33, 34). 

Then all its cognate words, and its opposite words, 
''unbelief," ''faithless," etc. Not only will this 
method give you a comprehensive intellectual view of 
the subject, but it will undergird your own faith, and 
strengthen you against the assaults of the great army of 
" doubters," who are always on the alert to surprise and 
overthrow God's people, as they did the Children of 
Israel in the wilderness (Heb. iii. 12). 



140 ^*II^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

Or, take that sweet and ricli word ^' GRACE/' and 
trace it through the Bible. Here yon see God's heart 
of love in exercise toward guilty sinners ; and by the 
time yon have made the journey through the Bible in 
company with grace you are sure of salvation, though 
the chief of sinners ; and this is to say nothing of the 
long draughts of sweetness to be had while lingering 
about some of these deep wells of salvation marked by 
this word. I have been told that Mr. Moody's great 
career as a soul-winner dates from a somewhat exhaus- 
tive study of this word. He had been shut up in his 
room for days studying this word, until his soul was so 
full of it that he could ^^ contain" no longer; so he 
started out of the house and stopped the first man he 
met on the street, and asked him if he knew anything 
about GEACE. ^'What do you mean?" said the man. 
'^ I mean," replied Moody, '^the grace of God that 
bringeth salvation, and which hath appeared unto all 
men." And right then and there he began and poured 
into that stranger's ear the story of God's grace, until 
the man himself was overwhelmed with the greatness of 
love, and yielded himself to God. 

Or suppose we should take up the topic of LOVE : 
what depth and height and breadth and length is here, 
which passeth all understanding, and wTiich yet it is 
given us to know ! And so on with EEPENTANCE 
and other great subjects ; a concordance and Bible will 
soon put you in possession of all the counsel of God on 
these questions. But we need not confine ourselves to 
such leading works and topics. We may find rich mines 
of truth in incidental words. I have just been having a 
delightful topical study of the word ^'abundantly." 
"What a wealth of truth and blessedness is gathered about 
that word ! 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 141 

The following are a few of the topics that I have 
studied out in this way, carefully classifying the pas- 
sages, and thus giving logical and symmetrical develop- 
ment to the divine thought: ''Able," ''Arise," 
^'Abundantly," "Beware," "Be of good cheer," 
"Behevers," "Daily" things, "Except," Paul's 
" Finally's,'' " Fear not," " Fools," " Follow Me," the 
^^ great" things of the Bible, the gifts of Christ from 
the words "gave" and "I give;" " If any man," 
'' Justification," " Grace," " Faith," " Love of God," 
^'Mysteries," "Manifold" things, "Now," "New 
Things," " One Thing," promises to the " Overcom- 
ers," " Peace," " Precious Things," " Paths," " Seek- 
ings," "Sittings," "Standing," "Walking," "Take 
Heed," "This man," What we "were," What we 
" are," What we " are not," What '^ we know," What 
" we have," " What we shall be." This list we might 
increase indefinitely. 

I shall never be able to tell how much knowledge of 
God's Word I owe to this method of study. It is so 
simple and easy that any one may pursue it, and with a 
good " Cruden" you may always find suggested to you 
an interesting topic. Indeed, this topical reading or 
study of the Bible is the true scientific method — classifi- 
cation. The naturalist gathers his facts from all nature ; 
then he classifies them ; and so he educes his generaliza- 
tions. The botanist gets his flowers, classifies and studies 
them, and arranges them in groups and families. The 
geologist gathers his rocks and shells, and classifies, and 
so studies. So, also, ought we. The Bible is the vast 
field of revelation : the facts are scattered over every 
page ; we should gather, and then arrange the facts, the 
words, the cognate thoughts, and study them in groups, 
and so link and join them together in a systematic whole. 



143 "II^ THE VOLUME OP THE BOOK.'^ 

This is, indeed, the science of theology ; and eyevj 
Christian should be a theologian in the true sense of that 
word. 

5. Read the Bihle as heing not a/n old hut an ever- 
new looTc. Sometimes we are apt to read the Bible with 
the exclnsive thought that it is a very ancient book ; 
that its histories are interesting as ancient sacred his- 
tories, its teachings as ancient teachings, the sayings of 
Christ and his miracles as being two thousand years old ; 
but let ns not forget that the Bible is a living book — an 
old book indeed, but a li^ang book — not decrepit with 
age, but having an unfailing youth. Its truth is as real 
and fresh to-day as if the ink were not dry on the 
parchment page upon which it was first written ; it is as 
fresh and living as the Spirit whose breath is still in it. 
The miracles and sayings of Christ are not the words 
and deeds of a dead man, but the present words and pres- 
ent deeds of the living Christ. We read of his birth 
as having occurred in this present time ; his death and 
resurrection are not facts of nineteen centuries ago, but 
the pregnant facts of to-day. " The words that I speak 
unto you," says Christ, '^ they are spirit, and they are 
life." The written Word of God is a kind of spiritual 
telephone between the believer and his Saviour. We 
take the word and put it against our spiritual ear, and 
God's living and thrilling thought comes into our soul. 
Not every word will so speak ; but, as we read, out of 
some word the divine voice will be heard. Let us then 
read the Bible as we would hear the words of the living 
and present God. 

6. Head it as the Word of God to YOU. Do not 
think of God's Word as a great storehouse of truth for 
the whole world, and so hold only a general relation to 
it ; but look into it*to find God's message to you. It is 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. . 143 

the message of God to yon. Christ died for ^^ the whole 
world," for '' every man." " God so loved the world 
that He gave his only begotten Son," etc. True, says 
Paul ; but when he draws near and personally appropri- 
ates Christ, he says, ^'/ am crucified with Christ." 
" The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for 
me^^ (Gal. ii. 20, 21). Oftentimes I am spiritually tired 
and weary, dull and stupid, toward God and everybody 
else. Those are just the times and seasons when an un- 
instructed Christian falls into doubt and despondency, 
and begins to reason with himself, saying, '^ If I am a 
Christian, how is it that I am so cold and indifferent and 
dead ?" Well, in such times, instead of undertaking the 
hopeless task of ^^self-examination" for the purpose of 
finding '^ Christ within," I take my Bible, and with a 
prayer, no matter if it does seem a dead prayer^ no Tnat- 
ter if it does seem to come out of a cold hearty I say, 
" Talk to me^ Lord ; talk to me out of thy Word. Hast 
thou not some word specially for me f Open Thou 
m^ine eyes, that / may behold wondrous things out of 
thy law. David says, Lord, 'How precious are thy 
thoughts unto m^e^ O God ; how great is the sum of 
them ! ' So, Lord, wilt thou not show me some of thy 
thoughts and refresh my soul witli words which I shall 
read !" And then I open my Bible, sometimes at ran- 
dom and sometimes at a '^ favorite book," and read, or 
glance my eye over the page until it is arrested by some 
word or saying or incident. 

Sometimes I turn the leaves of a whole book ; some- 
times I turn from the Old to the New Testament ; but 
I am sure to get arrested somewhere, and then listening, 
as it were, with my inner ears and seeing with opened 
eyes, my heart will begin to burn within me as He talks 
with me by the way, and out of the Word, of Himself 



144 ^^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

and his love, his plans and purposes concerning us, of 
heaven and eternal life ; or, it may be, He will talk to 
me of myself, my sin and shortcoming, and so search 
me and try my heart, and know me, and point out some 
wicked way in me, and bring to light some hidden thing. 
At other times I find simply the opening of a new truth 
or the fresh opening of an old one, and either by poly- 
glot reference or concordance I will follow this sweet 
conference with the Lord through the Bible, walking 
and talking with Him by the way. Thus many a dull 
and dark time has been changed into a season of delight. 
Indeed, we should always study the Bible with refer- 
ence to what it has to say to ourselves. This may help 
us to understand the difference between knowing the 
truth and knowing ohout the truth ; just as there is a 
great difference between knowing Jesus and knowing 
ohout Jesus. In the one case you have eternal life, and 
in the other case you are still a personal stranger to Him. 
7. Head your Bible freely. By this I mean. Do not 
bind the Word to one meaning ; do not put it too severely 
into the iron mould of grammatical exegesis. It is right 
and proper, of course, to acquire a proper exegesis or 
exact understanding of truth in its connection ; but, be- 
yond this, the "Word of God must not be bound ; it has 
many more things to say than appear on the surface. It 
is true that no Scripture can be limited to any one (or 
private) interpretation (2 Pet. i. 20). What it may say 
to you it may not say to another ; and what you would 
not be warranted in putting into \ifor another. But we 
know well that the Scripture is not limited to one signi- 
fication, or for one person's use. For instance, when 
it was written, ^^ Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he 
treadeth out the corn" (Deut. xxv. 4), no one reading 
that would have supposed that it had any remote refer- 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 145 

ence to the right of a minister to a fair and equitable 
support for his ^Svork of faith and labor of love." 
And yet the apostle so takes it, and directly applies it 
(1 Cor. ix. 9 ; 1 Tim. v. 18). And so, who would have 
thought that the command given to the Children of 
Israel in the wilderness with reference to the gathering 
and the distribution of the manna, so that ^^he that 
gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered 
little had no lack" (Ex. xvi. 18), had any reference to 
the law of beneficence ? And yet the apostle so says 
(2 Cor. viii. 15). 

Such cases of the use, and the divine use, of the Script- 
ure, in a sense not apparent in its original use, might 
be multiplied many times. Now, in reading God's 
Word, we ought not to hmit it to the strictest exegetical 
meaning, but let it say what it will to us. For example, 
I was one day reading these words to Abraham : " Lift 
Tip now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou 
art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and west- 
ward ; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I 
give it. . . . Arise, walk through the land, in the 
length of it, and in the breadth of it ; for I will give it 
unto thee" (Gen. xiii. 14, 15, 17). Tou may say that 
could signify nothing to me, except as it might in some 
v/ay be fulfilled in spiritual blessings through Christ. 
But it said something quite different to me. I had at 
that time begun a new and earnest study of the Bible ; 
and that promise to Abraham said to me that God would 
give me a practical understanding of all his Word, over 
which I should go studying. I do not say that it would 
ever mean that to any one else ; but it meant that, and 
still means that, to me. 

A friend of mine, in great perplexity and distress of 
mind over the damage done to a new carpet and delicate 



146 *'IN" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

furniture by the tramping across it of careless and muddy 
feet, was brought, so she told me, into peace and quiet 
by the remembrance of this text : They " took joyfully 
the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that 
they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance" 
(Heb. X. 34). Now, who shall say — even though the 
cases be so dissimilar, and the dependence of the appli- 
cation of the text rest on the sound of a word, and not 
its meaning — the spoiling of goods — that God did not 
out of that Scripture speak to his disturbed child, and 
bring her to her better sense and faith ? And how ab- 
surd to say, '' You must not be so comforted ; for that 
is not what the Scriptures mean !" It did mean that to 
her, and at that time. 

How oft is it true that we have opened God's Word, 
and found scriptures applicable to Old Testament saints 
in their need, have been the very Word of God to us in 
our need, though our circumstances are so dissimilar. 
God's Word was written for all ages and for all people ; 
but each one of us must read it and understand it for 
himself. Let it speak freely to you, and it will say 
many instructing and comforting things ; and to this 
end let the Word of God dwell in you richly (Col. iii. 
16), that the Holy Spirit may be enabled to bring com- 
fort to you in time of need by calling his word to your 
remembrance. 

8. Mark your Bihle. I know that Bible marking can 
be very meaningless and very mechanical, and that many 
silly people have begun to mark their Bibles, not for 
personal profit, but just to have a marked Bible. I saw 
a Bible, not long ago, that a man had hired a Bible stu- 
dent to mark for him. I thought. Why did you not hire 
somebody to ' ' thumb it " for you ? the thumbing would 
have done him as much good as the marking did. The 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 147 

Bible 1 most use is a wide-margin Bagster, the gift of a 
friend. When it was first given to me it was so beauti- 
ful and clean that I felt sorry to discover one of its fair 
white margins soiled by some one's dirty finger ; but 
now, its worn edges with its margins covered with notes, 
its pages lined, and its lines underscored, look far more 
beautiful. I have put the results of five blessed years of 
study into that Bible with pen and ink — here a little, 
there a little. A thousand precious things are stored up 
in that book ; with it in my hand I am never at a loss 
for a sermon or word of instruction and help. The best 
thoughts of many Bible students are tucked away on 
half-blank pages : the outline of scores of sermons, the 
indicated analysis of many books, the testimony and 
comments of saints upon certain passages. The help of 
this is — that you fix things in your mind and heart which 
you would not otherwise have done. On opening your 
Bible your mind is at once stirred with a thought or a 
memory. Indeed, every one's own Bible should carry 
the student's own spiritual history in notes — not neces- 
sarily intelligible to any one else. 

When I returned from a delightful pedestrian trip 
through Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy, I 
took a little map and marked the roads I had passed 
over, the mountains I had climbed, the towns and vil- 
lages I had stopped in ; and with my note-book and map 
I can retrace many happy days. So I have noted in my 
Bible the sweet wells of salvation I have drunk from, 
the paths I have walked over, the cities I have been in, 
the mountains I have climbed, the valleys I have passed 
through, the people I have met, and whose characters I 
have studied ; and I love to take up the precious book 
and turn over page after page, refreshing my mind and 
heart with many things, and so drink over again the 



148 ^^IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

water of other days, and rest again at tlie many Elims I 
have found on the way. 

I have heard of a Christian lady whose Bible showed 
the following marks on the margin, over against some 
of the promises and truths of the word : ^' T." ^^P." 
and " T. and P." Here was only '^ T," and there was 
'' T " and ^^ P." When asked what those letters meant, 
she said : '^ ^ T.' means I have tried that promise, and 
' T. and P. ' means that, having tried it, 1 have also 
proved it. There are many that I have only tried as 
yet, but when the answer comes, or the experimental 
knowledge of the truth comes, I make the completed 
note ' T. and P.' " How helpful thus to keep account 
of God's promises by this system of '^double entry !" 
Indeed, I often say to my friends, 1 have two Bibles ; 
one, the whole book, '^ from back to back," from Gene- 
sis to Revelation ; the Bible I accept as God's Word, 
on what to me is suflScient evidence. But then 1 have 
another Bible that is peculiarly my own — a Bible within 
the Bible — consisting of those scriptures of whose truth 
I have experimental and personal knowledge : and those 
truths not as yet tested by experience — such as " resur- 
rection" and " heaven," with all that is therein implied ; 
but which are so confirmed to me and in me by faith 
that it is all one as if God had revealed those things to 
me directly by his Spirit, and not mediately through his 
Word. Of these 1 can say, my eye hath not seen, my ear 
hath not heard, neither have entered into my heart, the 
things that God hath prepared for me ; but He hath re- 
vealed them to me by his Word and Spirit (1 Cor. ii. 9, 
10). These things comprise our Bible, within the Bible ; 
and daily this inner Bible is growing. I think it well, also, 
to keep a Bible free from marks of any kind, that you may 
not be limited, or have the Word bound, by old thoughts. 



HOW TO READ THE BIBLE. 149 

Our marking, important and helpful as we think Bible 
marking is, should not be allowed to '' bind the Word 
of God. ' ' You must adopt your own system of mark- 
ing. Do not take somebody else's method. And yet 
you may find many suggestions that will be helpful to 
you from the experience and work of others. For ex- 
ample : I have taken a camel' s-hair brush, and, dipping 
it into blue ink, I have passed it lightly over all those 
passages in the Word of God that speak of his love to 
man ; such, for example, as John iii. 16 : '^ God so 
loved the world," etc. ; and with red ink, and the 
brush, I have covered those passages that speak of the 
blood of Jesus Christ in the New Testament ; for ex- 
ample, 1 Pet. i. 19 ; 1 John i. Y, and the blood of atone- 
ment in the Old. It is surprising how Hue and red your 
Bible will be, thus marked. And then, suppose you 
were to take some purple ink, and cover all those pas- 
sages that are closely related to and are based on Love and 
Atonement, you would still further have your Bible in- 
terpreted to your eye at a glance. And then, for con- 
trast, take your pen and run a deep line of black around 
those passages that expose and lay bare the depravity 
and sinfulness of the human heart, and the fact of the 
righteous judgment of God to come, and the perdition 
of ungodly men ; such, for example, as Gen. vi. 5 ; 
Isa. i. 5 ; Matt. xv. 19 ; Rom. ii. 6 — 9. But 1 forbear 
any further suggestion in this line, being assured that a 
hint to the wise is sufficient. 

9. 7?^ studying the Bible, we should remember that it 
has a three-fold nature. So to speak, it has body, soul, 
and spirit : even as the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ. Its 
mere bodily form — the letter, the human language, in 
which it is incarnate, corresponding to his body. Were 
we to confine our study to that, we might know no more 



150 ''IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. 



>> 



of God and his will than an anatomist, who shonld do 
nothing but dissect a dead body, would know of mind or 
spirit. It has its doctrinal truth, the mind of God, 
M^hich is couched in the words of truth ; and this we 
should seek. And then there is the spiritual sense, the 
real life of the Scripture, that lies beneath all. Let us 
get through the body of the Word into fellowship with 
the soul and spirit of it. The Scriptures have been 
likened to the^ Temple with its outer court, its holy 
placej and its holiest of all ; and so it has its mere out- 
ward casual readers, its scribes and doctrinal readers, 
and its high -priestly readers, who go into the holiest of 
all, where God Himself shines in their hearts to give 
them the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face 
of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEE Xm. 

THE HEART AND THE SCRIPTIJRES. 

A great Bible student — Where the law of the Lord is to be found — 
The letter and the spirit— Inadequacy of human language — How 
apparently contradictory statements of Scripture are to be under- 
stood — Great and perplexing doctrines — Dark and concealed say- 
ings—Necessity of inward Spiritual sense -The Scripture unfolded 
to the heart rather than to the intellect — A prepared heart — Other 
CONDITIONS OP Bible study — The fear of the Lord — Personal conse- 
cration to God— Separation or retirement. 

It is said of Ezra, one of the most famous Bible stn- 
dents of any age, that he '' prepared his heart to seek 
the law of the Lord, and to do it " (Ezra vii. 10). Mark 
the words : he hsid prepared his heart to seek the law of 
the Lord. This certainly is what every Christian ought 
to do. Nay, more ; if we study the law of the Lord, 
intelligently and spiritually, we ?nust do it with a pre- 
pared heart. 

The law of the Lord is the entire revelation which 
God has given us of Himself, and of his purpose of grace 
concerning us ; or to state it in another way, it is the 
revelation of his will concerning us in our relation to 
Him, and in our relations to our fellow-men, whether 
they be Christians or unbelievers. This revelation of 
his will also includes the statement of our position in 
relation to the world, to time, and to eternity : the whole 
life is covered. 

If you ask how and where the law of God is to be 
sought, I reply it is not to be sought from within and 



152 ^^IN- THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'' 

evolved by a dreamy meditation, out of your own inner 
consciousness. Some have supposed that the promise of 
the new covenant, which says, '' I will put my laws into 
their hearts, and in their minds will I write them" (Jer. 
xxxi. 33 ; Heb. x. 16), is to be fulfilled by the direct 
revelations of the Spirit ; and that, therefore, the writ- 
ten Word of God is not the last and only source of knowl- 
edge. On such a supposition, many of the ancient mystics 
relied more upon the evolutions of their own conscious- 
ness,- inspired and moved, as they said, by the Holy 
Spirit, than upon the Word of God ; and to some extent 
this is true now of that pious sect of Christians known 
as Quakers. The result of this theory has been, largely, 
that every man who adopts it becomes practically a law 
unto himself ; and the law of the Lord, as written, has 
been put into a subordinate position, and, indeed, often 
set aside on the so-called authority of the voice of the 
Spirit, or the law of the Lord within. But if we are to 
know surely what the law of God is, we must turn our 
attention to what is written " in the volume of the Book" 
where it has pleased God to put into permanent form 
all his will concerning us. 

But let it not be understood that the mere letter of the 
Scripture is the law of the Lord. For since language, 
spoken or written, is only the Tinman and im^perfect 
vehicle by which God conveys to us his thoughts, it can- 
not perfectly express to us the whole of his will. The 
apostle (2 Cor. iii. 6) makes a striking distinction between 
the literal and the spiritual apprehension of the law and 
gospel, saying '^ the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 
life ;" and so also he says : " Our gospel came not in 
word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost ' ' 
(1 Thess. i. 5). And Christ says : " The words that I 
speak unto you, they are spirit^ and they are life" (John 



THE HEART AKD THE SCRIPTURES. 153 

yi. 63) — that is, they are not mere vocables, but living 
vocables that have spirit and life in them ; therefore He 
says : ^' It is the spirit that quicken eth ; the flesh profit- 
eth nothing." The Jews stumbled over his saying about 
eating his flesh and drinking his blood — not knowing 
that his words had reference not to natural flesh and 
blood, but to that which was behind the body, namely, 
the life and spirit ; therefore his saying above quoted. 

We must avoid dealing with the letter of the Word in 
this carnal way. It is true we cannot get at God's 
thoughts without the letter ; so neither can we get at 
his thoughts with the letter, if we do not discern the 
spirit behind or, so to speak, within the letter. For just 
as there is spirit and life behind or within our bodies, 
so the " spirit and life" of the truth lie behind or within 
the letter or body of the Scriptures. It is not the face, 
or eye, or hand, or lips, or bodily form, of our friends, 
that we know and cherish, but the personality, the 
^' spirit and life,'' manifesting itself through their bodies. 
We discern the life through the body, but the body is 
not the life : we comprehend the thought through the 
word spoken or written, but the word is not the thought. 
Just as it would be impossible to know the character and 
mind of a man by dissecting a dead body, so the exam- 
ination of the mere letter of the Scripture cannot but 
fail to give us an understanding of the mind of the Lord, 
Beside this very apparent truth, there are many other 
reasons why the mere letter of the Scripture cannot per- 
fectly express to us the will of God. Take, for instance, 
the following : 

We all know that, wonderful as is human language, 
and marvellous as is its power to express and communi- 
cate even some of the most delicate shades of meaning 
and thought, there are yet times when we feel the utter 



154 "IN" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

poverty of language to give utterance to what is in our 
minds and souls. For ages there has been, and for ages 
to come, we suppose, there still will be, a struggle to 
find new words, new symbols of thought — that the over- 
loaded mind and heart may have a competent vehicle by 
means of which they may express themselves. I^ow if, 
as we all know, we cannot perfectly express even our 
meagre thoughts and finite emotions through human 
language, how much more must it be true that the in- 
finite God cannot in human language alone give full and 
perfect expression to all his thoughts concerning us ! 
How precious are they, and how great the sum of them ! 
We think we can illustrate this poverty of words to 
conv^ey the whole truth to us. Take, for example, some 
statements in the Scriptures that to the uninstructed 
reader appear to be flatly contradictory. 

1. We are told in Genesis, that so great was the 
wickedness of man that " it repented the Lord that He 
had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at his 
heart " (Gen. vi. 6). Again, " The Lord repented of 
the evil which He thought to do" (Ex. xxxii. 14 ; 2 
Sam. xxiv. 16 ; Jer. xxvi. 19 ; Judges ii. 18 ; 1 Sam. 
XV. 35 ; Psalm cvi. 45, etc.). And, on the other hand, 
we read, " The Strength of Israel will not lie nor 
repent ; for He is not a man that He should repent " 
(1 Sam. XV. 29). And again, " God is not a man that 
He should lie ; neither the son of man that He should 
repent : hath He said, and shall He not do it ? or hath 
He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Num. 
xxiii. 19). 

In these and other passages we are assured that while 
it is in the nature of man to repent, God's word once 
given, his purpose once set. He will not, cannot repent. 
How then are such apparently contradictory statements 



THE HEART AN"D THE SCRIPTURES. 155 

to be reconciled ? If we are to deal with these state- 
ments only in their limited, unelastic, and verbal sense, 
we are in hopeless difficulty ; for both cannot be true, 
namely, that God loill not repent, and that He will and 
does repent. We may say, and say truly, tliat these 
statements are true, both of them, in their textual con- 
nections ; but that does not entirely meet the difficulty. 

We find the solution of such apparent contradictions 
rather in this wise : The bare word and letter do not 
and cannot communicate either the whole, or the exact, 
thought of God. We must put ourselves in the place 
and circumstances of those to whom these things were 
said. Catch the spirit of the words, and see what it is 
that God mearis^ and what thought it is that He desires 
to communicate through so imperfect a vehicle of ex- 
pression. Doubtless the intellect alone will not discover 
the harmony underlying this apparent contradiction, 
especially if it wants to find an occasion for doubt and 
unbelief. But the prepared heart finds no difficulty 
here. We may not be able to explain to the cold, intel- 
lectual critic the exact harmony and reconcihation be- 
tween these and similar statements ; but we know how, 
when in fellowship with God and his thoughts, we rest 
in perfect peace touching those things over which verbal 
criticism is for ever stumbling. 

Just as in quoting a public speaker you say, ^'He 
said such and such," and you may quote his exact words, 
and yet have entirely misconceived his thought. His 
words may have been the best he could choose, or his 
vocabulary may have been so limited that he had not 
the words at command to exactly express himself. So 
says a friend who knows him well : '^ If you only hnew 
the man, and loved him, I am sure you could have got 
no such meaning out of his words as you have reported : 



156 ^'lif THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

you would ha\^e understood liim quite differently. You 
have given your interpretation from a limited and, it 
may be, a not friendly knowledge of the man." So it 
often is the case that difficulties and contradictions lie 
more on the surface than in the deep facts of the Bible ; 
in the verbal expression, rather than in the living spirit 
of the Word. The necessary limitation of language has 
much to do with Bible difficulties. 

2. Again, there are the great doctrines that have been 
drawn out of the Scriptures and formulated in scientific 
human statements. For instance, those of the ' ' Trinity, " 
^^ Election," ''Future Punishment," etc. Concerning 
the Trinity, or the statement that the Father is God, the 
Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; that in each, 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all the fulness of the 
Godhead dwells ; that each is separate and distinct in his 
personality, and that all three are one God — the ages 
have been stumbling over this doctrine ; and, oh, pitiful 
shame ! the earth has been drunk with blood spilled in 
unholy wars, over words and formulae in which contro- 
versialists have sought to bind and imprison the truth ; 
and we suppose until the Lord comes, men will be strug- 
gling with the effort after exact and harmonious state- 
ment. 

Now it is impossible to put this doctrine into human 
language so that it may be demonstrated to the intellect- 
ual man ; but every prepared hea7*t has come to Jcnow^ 
without being able to explain^ the mystery of the 
Trinity. Every man and every woman who has had 
deep personal experience and is in fellowship with the 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirifc, has perfect knowledge of 
the fact of the triunity of God as it is taught in the 
Scriptures ; and as to the how or mode of this triune ex- 
istence, though it cannot be compassed w^ith the finite 



THE HEART AND THE SCRIPTURES. 157 

intelligence of man, yet the heart comprehends it. For 
there are times when our hearts yearn and long for the 
Father^ and to the Father we go ; there are times when 
it is God the Son we want, the incarnate God, who was 
made like unto his brethren, who took our sins and car- 
ried our sorrows, who was tempted in all points like as 
we ; and to Christ the risen and exalted sin-purger and 
advocate we go. And there are times when the heart 
longs for the encircling, strengthening, anointing, and 
comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, and to the Spirit 
we go. And with each, the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit, we are conscious that we are in communion with 
God ; and with one, not three gods. There is no use 
trying to explain it any farther : it is not in human lan- 
guage to do so. The heart knows the truth, not as it 
lies in the letter only, but in the '^ spirit and life" of the 
word. 

3. Again, the doctrine of election has been a stum- 
bling-block to many souls, especially taken in connection 
with the frequent statements in the Scripture as to the 
freedom of the will and the entire moral responsibility 
of man in sinning, and in rejecting the Gospel offer. 
When these two doctrines have been brought together 
by contending schools, they have been like flint and 
steel, from which the fire of bitter and irreconcilable 
controversy has flamed oftentimes into hate and ill-will. 
The intellectual and propositional difficulties growing 
out of these doctrines are as great to-day as they were 
ages ago, when Augustinian and Pelagian, Calvinist and 
Arminian, each sought to controvert the truth that the 
other held. The trouble, however, is not with the truth, 
but with the human vessel into which it is sought to 
crowd it. Words are too small, language too limited 
and feeble, for the truth. John Wesley and Whitefield 



158 ^^i:^ THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'* 

could not settle the dispute as to statement, nor could 
Charles Wesley and Toplady ; and yet all Calvinists and 
all Arminians sing, with equal fervor and deliglit, the 
hymn of the high Calvinist, Toplady, — 

" Eock of Ages, cleft for me ;' ' 

and the equally beautiful hymn of the Arminian, Charles 
Wesley, — 

** JesTis, lover of my soul." 

With the head and the letter, these things are impossible, 
but with the heart and the ^'spirit and life" of the 
v/ord, they are possible and easy ; for every Christian 
knows both the sweetness and strength of the Divine 
Sovereignty ; and at the same time, he knows full well 
that he has a will that is free to choose and act, and that 
is responsible for its choice and action. What incalcu- 
lable mischief has been wrought by putting the eternal 
truth of God upon the Procrustean bed of scientific state- 
ment, and attempting to compress it into the inadequate 
measure of human language ! Let these grand truths 
show as much of themselves to the intellect as they can 
through human language, and they show enough ; and 
we are content to know with our hearts what we fail en- 
tirely to comprehend with our heads. The heart can 
travel free and far afield after truth, where the head 
halts by the way and lames itself in stumbling. I do 
not say that truth should not be formulated, and in as 
exact statement as possible ; I say only that it is impos- 
sible to put an exhaustive statement of God's truth into 
human language. The great apostle made a sublime 
effort at stating the mystery of the divine purpose of 
grace ; but he did not profess to exhaust the mystery, but 
crowned his effort with the eloquent and divinely inspired 
burst of adoration and confession : ^^ O the depth of 



THE HEART AND THE SCKIPTUEES. 159 

the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! 
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past 
finding out !" (E-om. xi. 33). So it is impossible to put 
into words either the love or the peace of God ; for of 
one it is said that it " passeth all understanding" (Phil. 
iv. 7) J and of the other that it ^^ passeth knowledge" 
(Eph. iii. 19). 

4. There are many truths revealed in the Scriptures, 
that must be shown to us by some other agency than 
mere words ; for they seem to be written with the view 
of concealment as much as revelation. This is especially 
true of the parables: Jesus '^answered and said unto 
them. Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 
. . . Therefore speak 1 to them in parables : because 
they seeing see not ; and hearing they hear not, neither 
do they understand. . . . But blessed are your eyes, 
for they see ; and your ears, for they hear !' ' (Matt. xiii. 
11, 13, 16). And then He privately expounded to them 
the meaning of his parables. 

This peculiar hidden meaning is characteristic of the 
Scriptures ; and here, again, the written word is like 
unto the incarnate and eternal Word. There was always 
a mystery about Jesus that must needs be fathomed by 
other means than the ordinary understanding gained by 
study of the outward man ; for though He was the reve- 
lation of God, He yet concealed more than He revealed. 
The people saw that He was not like other men ; yet to 
all outward appearance He was but a man, and a com- 
mon every-day working man at that. Still there was a 
hidden mystery about Him ; and they asked, doubtfully, 
who He was, and whence He carae, '' Is not this the 
carpenter's son ? Is not his mother called Mary ; and 
his brethren, James mA JQses and Simon and Judas ? 



160 ^^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK. ^' 

and liis sisters, are they not all with us?" (Matt. xiiL 
55). 

All this was perfectly true, but it did not satisfy ; for 
there was a divine something behind all this that was not 
fully read and understood. And so men speculated and 
guessed. With one breath, they would say, ''We know 
that this man is a sinner ;" and with the next, '' As for 
this fellow, we know not whence He is" (John ix. 16^ 
24, 29). One day when Jesus and his disciples were to- 
gether, He asked, " Whom do men say that I, the Son 
of Man, am ? And they said : Some say that thou art 
John the Baptist ; some, Ehas ; and others, Jeremias, or 
one of the prophets. He saith unto them. But whom 
say ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered and said, 
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And 
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, 
Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed 
it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven" (Matt, 
xvi. 13—17). Though He was then before them, and 
had been with them in close companionship for a long 
time, yet it was necessary that they should have a reve- 
lation from heaven, in order that they might really know 
who He was. 

And here we have the Scriptures. They are before 
us ; the words are familiar ; they mean what words do 
in other books ; and yet there is a depth of meaning, a 
far-reaching sense in them, that they do not seem to have 
when freighted with human thought only. Like ships 
heavily laden, toiling through the sea, these human 
words, heavily laden with divine thoughts, sink deep in 
the sea of our human understanding. 

What do men say of this Word of God ? Some, that 
it is a legend ; others, that it is a divine philosophy 
evolved out of the inner consciousness ; some, that it is 



THE HEART AND THE SCRIPTURES. 161 

a human composition of far-reaching power and mean- 
ing ; and some, that it is a divine revelation. What do 
you say? If ever we come to .know the words of 
God, we must have a revelation in ourselves, that will 
show us the spirit of life in them which lies behind the 
mere words ; even as the Christ, the Son of the living 
God, was revealed in and through the flesh and blood, — 
Jesus of Nazareth. With what meaning did Jesus say, 
'' 1 thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes !'' (Matt. xi. 
25). The wise and prudent, searching with their heads 
only, miss what it pleases God to show out of his word 
to tlie babe or faith-spirit of man. 

5. Again, there are certain truths in the Scriptures 
with which we are acquainted, and with the power of 
which we are in some degree familiar, and yet we cannot 
put them into words. How, for instance, can we put 
into words the consciousness of the Spirit's presence in 
us and with us ? The Scriptures tell us of the Spirit's 
witness with our spirit. Now we are asked, '^ Do you 
know the witness of the Spirit ?" We reply, '' Yes !" 
And then we are asked to describe it ; but we might as 
well talk of color to a blind man, as to an unregenerate 
man of the witnessing Spirit of God. You can tell him 
what God says about it ; but you cannot expound the 
saying to him. The blind man says, '' What do you 
mean by ' red,' and ' blue,' and ' green ' ?" and all the 
answer you can make him is, that ^'red is red." He 
must have the sense and power of sight to know what 
the meaning of ^' red " is ; because '' red " is a word that 
depends on the ability to see, as well as on the objective 
color, for its meaning. So it is that there are many 
things in God's Word which depend on a regenerated 



162 ^*IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.'^ 

character for their meaning ; they are fooh'shness and 
meaningless to the unregenerate. " The natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they 
are foolishness nnto him ; neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned " (1 Cor. ii. 14). 
In this region of truth, experience is a prerequisite to 
understanding. 

What can a man or woman who has never loved know 
about love f Such may read, write, and talk about it, 
but they must first experience it before they can l^now 
anything about it. Moreover, we are aware how utterly 
inadequate language is to express even our love for one 
another. In vain we seek to translate our emotions and 
feelings into words ; they seem cold, and tame, and 
meaningless. How much more is it impossible for us to 
measure out in words the depths, and lengths, and 
breadths of God's love for us ! Paul tried once to ex- 
press it ; and, after using the infinite adjectives above, 
he broke down utterly, and said it ^^ passeth knowledge.' ' 
The same is true of ' ' the peace of God which passeth 
all understanding." Our human love, or sorrow, or 
sympathy, is as often expressed without words as by 
them. How often are we called into the house of 
mourning, where grief like a heavy pall has settled down 
upon some stricken heart ; how poor, how impotent to 
help, we feel ! Our lips are dumb ; the strongest and 
tenderest words are not able to bear up our thought, or 
carry a tithe of our feeling to the stricken friend ; and 
so we take the hand of the sufferer, and look into the 
tear-washed eyes, conscious that we can say more by the 
silent pressure of the hand, and the glance of sympathy, 
than by word of mouth. 

If human language is inadequate to express our feel- 
ings, and tell our love and gri^f, our joy and sympathy, 



THE HEART AKD THE SCRIPTURES. 163 

how mucli more inadequate must it be to convey to us 
the full measure of God's heart ! While we read, let us 
feel after the unseen hand of God in the word, and 
search for those wondrous eyes, which used to awe the 
disciples into fear, or melt a sinning Peter's heart into 
penitence and tears. Again, let me say, it were as vain 
to seek after the life and spirit of a man by dissecting his 
dead body, as to hope to get God's truth by searching 
the mere letter. If, therefore, we want to know God's 
mind and heart, we must look for something besides 
words ; and, in order to do this, we must have the help 
of God's Spirit from above. If flesh and blood could 
not reveal the Christ, the Son of God, in the man Jesus, 
so neither can the unaided intellect of man discern the 
truth in the mere letter of the Scripture. 

The Scriptures are unfolded not so much to the intel- 
lect as to the heart of man. 1 do not say that a mind 
well trained for the study of the Scriptures has not its 
important part in that study ; but 1 do say that the 
Bible is a sealed book, so far as its spiritual treasures are 
concerned, to the man who brings only his intellect to 
the study of it. For since we have clearly seen that it 
is impossible for God to put into mere words the full 
and complete expression of his thoughts, and the wealth 
of his love and purpose towards us ; so it must be equally 
impossible for us with our unaided minds to comprehend, 
by the words of revelation alone, all that God has put 
into his Bible. 

If we study mathematics, we bring to bear upon that 
science only the cold powers of our intellect. Our heart 
and soul are not moved by such study. The emotional 
and spiritual nature is utterly unreached. Or if, finding 
a curious stone, we try to classify it geologically, that is 
purely intellectual business. Indeed, scientists tell us 



164 ^^IlSr THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

that one of the first and essentia] preparations for the 
exact study of science is to absolutely exclude the emo- 
tions ; we must not, they say, be swayed so much as a 
hair-breadth by any wish or desire on our part that this 
or that may come out of scientific investigations. 

But when we seek God's Word, we must bring the 
heart, that organ over against which it is revealed, to the 
study of it. The intellect is but the handmaid to the 
heart in Bible study. If we have not come to under- 
stand this, our Bible study is a failure. Let us look at 
this matter of the relation of the heart of man to God 
and his revelation. ''The fool hath said in \\\^ hearty 
'No God' " (Ps. xiv. 1). It is the imagination and 
thoughts of man's heart t\\dit are evil (Gen. vi. 5). It is 
out of his heart that evil thoughts do proceed (Matt. xv. 
19) ; and it is the heart that God calls for (Prov. xxiii. 
26). It is a new A^(^r?^ that -God promises to give, not 
a new head (Ezekiel xi. 19). It was " such an heaT't " 
that God longed for in the people that should serve Him 
(Deut. V. 29). And the blessing of the new covenant 
is that God puts his law in the hearts of the people ( Jer. 
xxxi. 33). It is the pure in heart that are to see God 
(Matt. V. 8). These are enough, out of hundreds of 
such scriptures, to show that God deals v^tli the hea7't 
of man ; and that the Bible is a book addressed to the 
hearty rather tlian to the head. 

If you are curious to look further into this matter, 
turn to your " Cruden," and look through the nine 
cohmins of that great book devoted to the " heart;" and 
note how frequently the heart is exhorted to attend to 
the words and commandments of the Lord. " Ezra pre- 
pared his heart to seek the law of the Lord" (Ezra vii. 
10). David says, " When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, 
my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, v/ill I seek" 



THE HEART AND THE SCRIPTURES. 165 

(Ps. xxvii. 8). In Ezekiel we read tliat the Lord said 
to him, ^' Son of man, all my words that I shall speak 
unto thee receive in thy hearty and hear with thine ears" 
(iii. 10). God reveals his word through the heart of man 
to the heart of man. But this revelation is not profit- 
able except it be received by faith ; and faith in God is 
far more a matter of heart than it is of the head, for it 
is '' with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness" 
(Eora. X. 10). '^ O foolSj and slow of heart to believe" 
(Luke xxiv. 25). Obedience to God and his truth pro- 
ceeds from the heart (Rom. vi. 17). It is the hea/rt that 
God establishes w^ith grace (Col. iii. 22) ; and so, on the 
other hand, it is the heart of man that rejects God. 
'^' Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an 
evil heart of unbelief \x\ departing from the living God" 
(Heb. iii. 12). The Gospel is preached to the heart of 
man, and the effect of the Gospel is to ^W(?^ some m 
their heart (Acts ii. 37), and to cut others to their heo/rt 
(Acts V. 33). The Jews receive not Christ because the 
veil of Moses is still over their hearts (2 Cor. iii. 15) ; 
and men generally do not understand the Bible because 
they seek to understand it with their heads, rather than 
with their hearts. The Word of God is to be heard with 
our ears or seen with our eyes, but it is to be understood 
with our hearts (Isa. vi. 10 ; Matt. xiii. 15 ; Acts xxviii. 
27). You say of some passage of Scripture : '^ I do not 
understand that." First believe it. You cannot know 
the flavor of a peach until you taste it ; so neither can 
you know the meaning of God's words until you believe 
them. ■'' Thy words v/ere found, and I did eat them ; 
and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine 
heart " {^q,v, xv. 16). The heart is the organ for the 
study and reception of the Word of God. 

B^Lt there must he a peeparatioi^ of the heart in order 



166 '^IK THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

to stndy the Word. "Ezr^i prepared his heart. But Ee- 
hoboam "prepared not his heart to seek the Lord " 
(2 Chron. xii. 14). How shall our hearts be prepared ? 
The Scriptures tell us that the preparation of the heart 
is from the Lord (Prov. xvi. 1). Before our Lord was 
crucified. He told his disciples that He would send them 
the Spirit of Truth to abide with them for ever, and to 
guide them into all truth (John xiv. 16 ; xvi. 13). Now 
the Holj Spirit who is here promised to the believer as 
a guide into all truth is the verj author of the Word : 
and if He dwell in us, surely we have all help at hand 
for the proper preparation of the heart and the under- 
standing of the truth ; and He is ready — oh, so ready ! 
- — to show Himself strong to those whose hearts turn 
toward Him ; and God is willing to give the Holy Spirit 
to every one that asks Him. 

The Holy Spirit in the heart, and dwelling upon us as 
an anointing (1 John ii. 2Y), is the first essential inward 
preparation. It is not necessary for us to have visible or 
even mysteriously sensible evidence of the presence of 
this divine teaching Spirit. We ask God for this great 
gift, and then open the "Word in dependence upon his 
presence and help, and lo ! the mysteries of the Script- 
ures begin to unfold themselves to our delighted hearts. 
In the most natural way does this blessed Spirit dwell in 
us and do his work. It is as natural for Him to dwell 
in us, teaching and guiding us into all truth, as for the 
breath of life to be in our bodies, filling us from life's 
necessary element, the air. Let us not make difficulties 
in this matter of the Spirit's presence and of his work. 

There are two or three further and important condi- 
tions to be observed if we would come to know fully the 
meaning and power of God's Word. 



THE HEART AND THE SCRIPTURES. 167 

(1.) '' The secret of the Lord is with them, that fear 
Him" (Psa. xxv. 14). Do jon ask me : What is it to 
fear the Lord ? Well, here is an illustration of what 1 
have been trying to tell you, — the poverty of words. I 
am at a loss to know what to say : I do not know how to 
tell yon what it is to fear the Lord. ' ' He who does 
not know the meaning of this verse," says Spnrgeon, 
'' will never learn it from a commentary :" certainly he 
will not from ns. But begin a Bible-reading right here ; 
take your concordance and look up the word " fear" as 
applied and used in this sense, to an attitude of heart 
toward the Lord ; and then know, examine and see, if 
you fear the Lord. If so, his secret will not be kept long 
from you. It will whisper itself into your heart out of 
every page of his Word. 

(2.) ^^1 beseech you therefore, brethren, by the 
mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living 
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reason- 
able service. And be not conformed to this world ; but 
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that 
ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and per- 
fect will of God " (Rom. xii. 1, 2). Here then are two 
or three conditions : consecration, nonconformity to the 
world, and the renewing of the mind. Perhaps it would 
be well for you to begin another Bible-reading on these 
points. Be sure, however, that the Christian who allows 
himself to be absorbed with this world, retains its fel- 
lowship, and gives it his love, has barred his heart to the 
joyful understanding of the Word of God. If we want 
to understand God's purpose of grace as revealed through 
his Word, and be sanctified by it, and lifted up into 
communion with Him through it, we must break fellow- 
ship with this world. " For all that is in the world, the 
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 



168 ^^IN" THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK." 

lifOj is not of the Father, but is of the world ;" there- 
fore '^ love not the world, neither the things that are in 
the world : if any man love the world, the love of the 
Father is not in him" (1 John ii. 15, 16). 

Many Christians, young and old, are saying : ^^ I do 
not understand the Bible," and ^^ I do not enjoy read- 
ing it." In most cases the reasons are very apparent, 
and among them this one : tliey will not give up the 
world, but persist in these unholy, and in many cases, 
ungodly associations, which war against the soul and 
prevent fellowship with God— without which the Bible 
is a dull, dry, dead book. But come out from the world 
and be separate, and God will receive you, and reveal 
H imself to you, and wonderful things out of his law. 
Why is it that so many Christians make their choice with 
the world only to perish with hunger on miserable husks 
that the swine do feed upon ; when, if they w^oiild only 
live at home with their I ather, they would have kisses, 
and robes, and rings, and shoes, and fatted calves, and 
such music and dancing as the world never dreamt of 
and cannot give ? " Oh that my people had hearkened 
unto Me, and Israel had walked in my ways. I should 
soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand 
against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should 
have submitted themselves unto Him ; but their time 
should have endured for ever. He should have fed them 
also with the finest of the wheat ^ and with honey out of 
the rochs should 1 have satisfied thee'^^ (Ps. Ixxxi. 13 — 16). 

(3.) Finally, when God has wanted to fill a soul with 
Himself, He has, in a noticeable way, separated him in 
body, as well as heart, from the world. A monastic life 
is not according to the letter or genius of the Scripture ; 
but God does often take his children apart to instruct 
them. Abraham, the friend of God, must have been 



THE HEART AXD THE SCRIPTURES. 169 

much alone with God ; Moses was forty years in the 
wilderness mostly alone wdth God, and other forty days 
entirely alone with Him on the mount ; Elijah was also 
carried away for a similar length of time ; John the 
Baptist was a wilderness man ; Jesus had his days of 
separation, and He would often take his disciples apart 
from the crowd, and instruct them and commune with 
them. Paul was a long time down in Arabia, where he 
seems to ha\^e had special instruction directly from the 
mouth of the Lord Jesus (Gal. i. 1). John was on lonely 
Patmos when the ^^ revelation" came. Some of the 
early fathers separated themselves to study the Word of 
God. Luther in the old Wartburg, Bunyan in Bedford 
jail, Wesley in his secluded chambers, Madame Guyon 
and Fenelon in prison, learned their deepest lessons in the 
truth. Alone with God ! Alone with God ! How few 
of us know what it is to go apart for awhile and be with 
God and his Word ; and yet, if we would know the 
Scripture and have clear insight into it, we must have 
our seasons of retirement in order to be alone wdth God. 
May the Word of God dwell in you richly ! And 
may the Spirit of truth prepare your heart to seek the 
law of the Lord, and go with you into the holiest of all, 
in the temple of truth, and light up the otherwise dark 
dwelling-place of God ; and then give you a heart to do 
it, and to teach the word to others ! 



APPE]^DIX. 



For the purpose of giving yon further helpful sugges- 
tion as to the leading idea of the different books of the 
Bible, I append herewith a list of the books in their 
order, with the key- words or thoughts belonging to each. 
This list of headings is not of my own making. I can- 
not tell where 1 found it, but think 1 have compiled it 
from various sources. I think I should express the 
thought differently in some cases ; but in the main I 
commend it to your careful study. You may modify it 
according to your own light and thought. It is given 
not as of authority, but of judgment and for suggestion. 

It might be well to write in plain, legible hand these 
headings on the upper margin of your Bible, over each 
book, thus : 

GENESIS.—*' The Book of Beginnings." '' Man's Failure." 
EXODUS.—" Book of Redemption. " 
LEVITICUS.—'' Book of Sacrifice and Priesthood." 
NUMBERS.— '' Book of Wilderness Wanderings." 
DEUTERONOMY.—" Book of Conduct for Canaan." 
JOSHUA.—" Book of Faith, Conflict and Victory." 
JUDGES.—" Book of Failure in Canaan." 
RUTH.—*' Book of Typical Prophecy." 

1 SAMUEL.—" Royal Government in the Hands of Saul." 

2 SAMUEL.—" Royal Government in the Hands of David." 

1 KINGS. — " Royal Government of Solomon and His Successors." 

2 KINGS.—" Royal Government in its Decline." 



172 APPENDIX. 

1 CHRONICLES.—" God's Earthly Government, connected with the 

Throne and the Ark." 

2 CHEONIOLES.— ** God's Earthly Government in the House of 

David." 
EZEA. — " Ecclesiastical History on Return from Babylon." 
NEHEMIAH.— '' Civil Condition on Return from Babylon." 
ESTHER.—'* God's Secret Government towards Israel." 
JOB. — ** Book of Individual Discipline for Learning of Self.'* 
PSALMS. — " Experimental Holy Song and Messianic Prophecy." 
PROVERBS.—'' Wisdom for the World." 
EGCLESIASTES.— " World too Small for Man's Heart." 
SONG OF SOLOMON.—*' One who Found the Object too Great for 

his Heart." 
ISAIAH. — " Comprehensive and Magnificent Prophecy." 
JEREiy^H.— " Judgments upon Judah ; the Nations and the Lat- 

ter-^I^Glory." 
LAMENTiOTpNS.— " Godly Feelings in View of Israel's Sorrow." 
EZEKIEL. -^Judgment upon Israel and Connected Nations, with 

Future Blessings of Israel." 
DANIEL.—*' Gentile Political History." 

HOSEA. — *' Israel's Moral Condition — Past, Present, and Future." 
JOEL. — '' Universal Judgment and Latter-Day Blessing." 
AMOS. — ** Certain Judgment upon the Gentiles and all Israel : Future 

Restoration of the Latter." 
OBADIAH.— ** Judgment upon Edom." 
JONAH. — *' Judgment upon Nineveh, and its Repentance." 
MIC AH. ^ — ** Judgment and Future Blessing of Jerusalem and 

Samaria." 
NAHUM.— ** Judgment upon Assyria." 
HABAKKUK.— *' Book of Jewish Spiritual Exercise." 
ZEPHANIAH. — " Book of Unsparing Judgment, and Blessing upon 

the Remnant of Israel." 
HAGGAI. — '* Encouragement in Rebuilding the Temple." 
ZECHARIAH.— ** The ' Last Days' Connected with Israel." 
MALACHI.— ** Jehovah's Last Pleading with Israel." 
MATTHEW.—*' Son and Lord According to Promise." 
MARK.—** The One who Meets Man's Need." 
LUKE.—'* The Son of Man in his Service amongst Men." 
JOHN.—'* The Son of God in the Moral Glory of his Person and 

Ways." 
ACTS. — '* Christ in Heaven ; and the Energy of the Holy Ghost on 

Earth. — What Jesus continued to Do and Teach. — How the 



APPE^STDIX. 173 

Church was Gathered and Built. — The Progress of the King- 
dom." 
ROMANS. — " Christianity Unfolded. — Righteousness, and how Man 
can be just with God." 

1 CORINTHIANS.—^* Church Order and Discipline.— Our Relation 

to each other in the Church." 

2 CORINTHIANS.—'' Christian Ministry, and Superiority over Cir- 

cumstances. — Our Relation to the World and to them." 
GALATIANS. — '' Christian Blessing and Liberty Contrasted with the 

Law. — * Stand East in the Libert}^ wherewith Christ hath made 

you Free.'— The Spirit is the Beginning, Middle, and End of 

Christian Life and Power." 
EPHESIANS.— " Christ the Measure of Christian Standing and 

Blessing. ' Together with Christ.' " 
PHILIPPIANS.—" Christian Experience.— In the Face of Christ.— 

Perfection that is not Perfect. — One Thing to Do." 
COLOSSI ANS.—" The Church's Glories and Fulness in Christ, her 

Head." 

1 THESSALONIANS.— "Christ Coming to and /or the Church, and 

her Eternal Blessedness." 

2 THESSALONIANS.— " Christ coming with his Saints.— The Eter- 

nal Judgment of Unbelievers. " 

1 TIMOTHY.—'' Church Order according to God." 

2 TIMOTHY.—" Church Disorder and the Individual Pathway." 
TITUS.—" Christian Qualification for the Ministry and Godly Con- 

. duct." 
PHILEMON. — '* Christian Love, counting upon Love between 

Brother and Brother. ' ' 
HEBREWS.—" Our Apostle, Priest, Sacrifice, and Witness." 
JAMES. — "The Common Sense of Christianity; or. Christian 

Morality in and out of the Church." 

1 PETER. — " God's Righteous Government in Relation to Saints." 

2 PETER. — '* God's Righteous Judgment upon the Public Christian 

Profession." 

1 JOHN. — " Christ the Eternal Life, and Power of Communion with 

God." 

2 JOHN. — " Christ and the Truth the Safeguard against Heresy." 

3 JOHN. — "Christian Hospitality to the Saints, and especially to 

Laborers." 
JUDE.— " Apostasy Traced down to the Last Days." 
REVELATION.—" Christ Assuming the Government of the World. 

— Things to Come," 



174 APPENDIX. 



HELPS TO THE STUDY OF THE WOED. 

1. Cruden's Concordance. — Unabridged. 

2. Young's Analytical Concordance. 

3. Hudson's Greek Concordance to New Testament. 

4. The Portable Commentary — Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown. 

5. Dr. Anderson's Searching the Scriptures. 

6. Christ and the Scriptures — Saphir. 

7. Fraser' s Synoptical Lectures. 

8. Thomson's '' The Land and the Book." 

9. C. H. M.'s Notes. 

10. The Law of the Oft'erings — Andrew Jukes. 

11. Characteristic Differences of the Four Gospels — Andrew Jukes. 

12. Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences. 

13. Progress of Doctrine in New Testament — Barnard. 

14. Old Faiths in New Lights — Newman Smythe. 



THX; STANDARD SERIES. 

Best Books jFor a Trifle. 

These books are printed in readable type, on fair paper, and are bound in postal 
card manilla. 

These books are printed wholly without abridgment, except Canon Farrar'g "Life 
of Christ" and his " Life of Paul." 



pfo. Price. 

1. John Ploughman's Talk. C. H. 
Spurgeon. On Choice of Books. 
Thomas Carlyle. 4to. Both.... $0 12 

2. Manliness of Christ. Thomas 
Hughes. 4to 10 

3. Essays. Lord Macaulay, 4to... 15 

4. Light of Asia. Edwin Arnold. 4t6. 15 

5. Imitation of Christ. Thomas a 
Kempis. 4to 15 

6-7. Life of Christ. Canon Farrar. 

4to .'. 50 

8. Essays. Thomas Carlyle. 4to.. 20 
9-10. Life and Work of St. Paul. 

Canon Farrar. 4to 2 parts, both 50 
11. Self-Culture. Prof. J. S. Blackie. 

4to. 2 parts, both 10 

12-19. Popular History of England. 

Chas. Knight. 4to 2 80 

20-21. Ruskin's Letters to Workmen 

and Laborers. 4to. 2 parts, both 30 

22. Idyls of the King. Alfred Tenuy- 

son. 4to 20 

23. Life of Rowland Hill. Rev. V. J. 
Charlesworth. 4i o 15 

24. Town Geology. Charles Kings- 
ley. 4to 15 

25. Alfred the Great. Thos. Hughes. 

4to 20 

26. Outdoor Life in Europe. Rev. E. 

P. Thwing. 4to 20 

27. Calamities of Authors. I. D'ls- 
raeli. 4to 20 

28. Salon of Madame Necker. Part I. 

4to 15 

29. Ethics of the Dust. JohnRuskin. 

4to 15 

20-31. Memories of My Exile. Louis 

Kossuth. 4to 40 

32. Mister Horn and His Friends. 

• . Illustrated. 4to 15 

33-34. Orations of Demosthenes. 4to. 40 

35. Frondes Agrestes. John Rus- 

kin. 4to 15 

36. Joan of Arc. Alphonse de La- 
martine. 4to 10 

37. Thqjights of M. Aurelius Anto- 
ninus. 4to 15 

^. Salon of Madame Necker. Part 

IL 4to 15 

39. The Hermits. Chas. Kingsley. 4to. 15 

40. John Ploughman's Pictures. C. 

tf. Spur2:eon. 4to 15 

41. Pulpit Table-Talk. Dean Ram- 
say. 4to 10 

42. Bible and Newspaper. C. H. 
Spurgeon. 4ro 15 

43. Lacon. Rev. C. C. Colton. 4to. 20 



No, Pric«. 

44. Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 

4to $0 20 

45. America Revisited. George Au- 
gustus Sala. 4to 20 

46. Life of C. H. Spurgeon. Svo. . . . 20 
4T. John Calvin. M. Guizot. 4to... 15 
48-49. Dickens' Christmas Books. 

Illustrated. Svo 50 

50. Shairp's Culture and Religion. 8vo. 15 
51-52. Godet's Commentary on Luke. 
Ed. by Dr. John Hall. Svo, 2 parts, 

both 2 00 

53. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part 

L Svo 15 

54-57. Van Doren's Suggestive Com- 
mentary on Luke. New edition, 
enlarged. Svo 3 00 

58. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part 

IL Svo 15 

59. The Nutritive Cure. Dr. Robert 
Walter. Svo . . 15 

60. Sartor Resartus. Thomas Car- 
lyle. 4to 25 

61-62. Lothair. Lord Beaconsfield. 

Svo 50 

63. The Persian Queen and Other 
Pictures of Truth. Rev. E. P. 
Thwing. Svo 10 

64. Salon of Madame Necker. Part 

m. 4to 16 

65-66. The Popular History of Eng- 
lish Bible Translation. H. P. Co- 
nant. Svo. Price both parts .. . 5C 
67. Ingersoll Answered. Joseph Par- 
ker, D.D. Svo 15 

68-69. Studies in Mark. D. C. 

Hughes. Svo, in two parts 60 

70. Job's Comforters. A Religious 
Satire. Joseph Parker, D.D. (Lon- 
don.) 12mo 10 

71. The Revisers' English. G. Wash- 
ington Moon, F.R.S.L. 12mo.. 20 

72. The Conversion of Children. Rev. 
Edward Pay son Hammond. 12mo 30 

73. New Testament Helps. Rev. W. 

F. Crafts. Svo 20 

74. Opium — England's Coercive Poli- 
cy. Rev. Jno. Liggins. Svo lf> 

75. Blood of Jesus. Rev. Wm. A. 
Reid. With Introduction by E. 
P.Hammond. 12mo 10 

76. Lesson in the Closet for 1883. 
Charles F. Deems, D.D. i2mo.. 20 

77-78. Heroes and Holidays. Rev. 

W. F. Crafts. 12mo. 2 pts., both 30 
79. Reminiscences of Rev. Lyman 

Beecher, D.D. Svo 10 



FUNK 6l WAGNALLS. 10 and 12 Dey St., NEW YORK. 



BRAIN AND NERVE FOOD. 



VITALIZED PHOS-PHITES. 

COMPOSED OF THE 

Nerve^Giving Principles of the Ox-Brain and Wheat-Crerm. 

It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or Indigestion ; relieves Lassitude and 
Neuralgia; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, excitement, or excessive brain fatigue; 
strengthens a failing memory, and gives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaus- 
tion or Debility. It is the only PREVENTIVE OF CONSUMPTION. 

It aids in the mental and bodily growth of children. Under its use the 
teeth come easier, the skin grows plumper and smoother ; the brain acquires 
more readily and sleeps more sweetly. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, 
and is peevish. It gives a happier childhood. 

Physicians have used a Million Packagesl It is not a secret remedy ; 
the formula is on every label* 

By Druggists or by Mail, $L 

Bend for circular, f . CROSBY CO.. 56 West 25th St., N, K. 



SOHMER 



The enviable position 
SOHMER & CO. hold 
among American Piano 
manufacturers is solely 
due to the merits of 
ttieir instruments. 




They are used in Coit' 
servatories, Schools, 
and Seminaries on ac- 
count of their superior 
tone and unequalled do* 
rability. 



SO H Ml E R OL C O' *49; 151, 153, and 155 East Fourteenth 8t» N. V.. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1V 



do 










ccccc <c: 












4C3C' < < '^<Zz 5 









dX <^Cja«L 









C C-«3C 

c OCSCC 











^-^ : 


^ *^^-- 


,_- — ^ 




t d^TC C ds^ 


7^- < d 


■k'^cg: fc c 








d c 

^- — 




«S5c"CC dd 
<< d'^ ^ ^ ^> 


c -J 




'■C'< 


<: 




<-- 

d 


cc d^ 




:■ <c ' 


< 


1 <-*' 




dc d d 

<sC djd 

- cc O^ 


- r«. dL«: c ^ <- 1 


&^r5- 




' c 


< 




<: d: 


<^ <* ^^-'^ ^ ' > ^ cod' 


^^?d < <^- 
«5c c c 

4^^ <C 




^^ 


c^ 


<d cr: 


<JC <L 'd^ 


C CC did <^ "^ S^ 


:>^ «' d 






^ — 


vd < 


c^ < c <r < 


-'c « d-cc^^ ^ ^ 


^~cCcd 


(^ 


<r 


CI 


<<r <: 


^ >^< <r <<l 


^ ^"^ >^^^'-<^^ 


^cccd 


^^ << 




c: 


d - 


^d: d 


cc d d 


'' ^^ ^ 5v ^ ^ 


^ « < d 


1S*^ ^0"^ 


^ f 


^'^ 


•<t'' ■ 


<c: <: 


d: d d^ 


a c<: ^« cc d ^ 


^^ r, C d" 


^tm '^^ 






<d 


<d d 


d c ^-d 


^c C5:. ddc^ d d 


T '. cd. 


«<.' '■ < 


<. C 






*^<: < 


r <L d ds 


_<^ CC <c;<cc- o < 


r .c< d 


^ 'c r 






<^ ' 


<d c 


- d C ^d^ 


cc c:< d^'*" c d ^ d 


? cccc: 


^e ccc 




*■ — 


<<r 


<d d dc c^- 


<c C' dcd'd d 


"^C <C C ^ 


' < <r<< 'fc 


<-. ^ 


* — 


<^. 


-^d 


dT^x c ^<^ 


^- ^f c d<cvd 5 


rT:' <C « < 


^ ccrctc 


_ ( c 


^ — 
^- — 


^ 

<S^ 


<ucr 


<^cc d ^d 


i cc C dCC '' d * 


irr~~^- ^e ■*' A 


j^ . #K<' ^<^ 






<d 


c::(rc d^dt 


: j^ <c c^ <jtc d ^ 
-^ C Cc CCC ;d < 


^^ rc ^ <I <«^<< '<^ 








^d 

:<c^v <.id 


d<rc c; cd 
d ^ C eCT' 

dc^c ^-C 
d c: cc 

: c ' c cc 
dc C < 

c< dC 


^ cc c:< <£.'. :~d_ ;^ 

cc< dc <X^'^d < 

"<cc -CC dc c: ^ 

"if ^. C< C£? d ^ 

c • 'r <c c < <§:< ■ cz < 

: cc._c c< <x/ d ^ 

d<l C C f^v, d < 

cc<^ c 'r; <^ d <1 
cc<2^ c ^ d: d <: 


Z." d 

-V'CC 


^ c<t<ccc 

d:< c«fc .'c 

<: • c<^; ' c. 
dl .d c 


< 

d 

d 




V, — 


<: 




< - ^^ 


ccd dc :d d d 


"-<d 


CTv <4rc -c 


4 — 


C" 


^jici. 


vcc ml^^ 


' ctC<2: <r-r <x c ^: 


:: :«:-- 


«:l.<<^^''«^' 


. *^ — _ 


^- — 
d 




1, '■<-<•■ '*^''* 


Zd^dcd 

-^Ct^^d ^ d 

^c<c: e d 
tid c d 




:-r<c: 


drc<cc^c 

<Iccd ' c 


c: 

c< — 


c 


<^.^^v ^^ 


^: c:v d d ^ 


''■'XC 


dc«ir. c < 


c: 




S^ i^S 


cc^ cdd < <i: 


:/*>^;C2: 


<2kM/< < 




d 




<g:<f. «c^ 


(s^Ks: cc<ii c «: 
^<cc *^^ "^^ 


^^ 






^ic-cr^d 


"^ 


<1 

„, — 




^.c^ ^<^c^ ^ V 


^cd cc d c dl 


«scS 


<rv.,<tc c 1 


.<o 




^^^^" 


c^- ^ 


-<^ *- *- >^ 


^^ CCCC tc 


<€cc: 


<3*-cv. c C 






<[I^ 


<^^id' d<^C-V >- 




c^C 


dl^C/C < 




C3^ 


^^- i '^ ' 


^ c C d 


<CCd ccdc cr_ 


«?:d 


<Z:C • C C 




d 
c 

C 

r 


^ 




,^^ -d "^ ^-~~^- 

<:c^cc' d 
^..dc c cr 
<dcc jC 
. d<i. c c 


<^v C_^ Cc c <^ 

cr d ccc^ 

d . ' d <^d ^ ^ 


cCTd 
<C d 

CC d 

c5:3d 
cc cC 


*Ci7«C :C, < 

<Iic c < 

ct:c c <c 

- ^5 C C" 

dec c 

<d<i c c 


<1C 


C 


dl 


•TV Vi^^ 


^c ?: c: 




C^' cc 


dC r c 




: C 


d.- 


c5^ <^ 


<rc^c ci 


^-"^- A c d^ 


CC < 


" <dCc C 


t< 


c 


d 




d ^c c 


<^ 'Cd .- ^:^ ^^ V^- 


cc ■-< 


d_ CCC- c c 


CZJ' 


c c 


<^' 


Cv.* ■ >~ — 


cT^ cr c 


d ^c<_ ^^- \:^=^ 


cc ' 


dl <src< c c 


^ 


c c 


^ 




<r< cc c 


.-r?^ ff^^ (C C C C^ 


cc « 


d <CdC< 


<: 


C c 


CI 




d<i ^ 
dCC 


d: fC<t_ •- ^ ^^1=- 




H dc C ( 

d dCCC 


dc 


:l c< 


V — 


d ^"-^ 


Cdc 


^^^ ?>; d^ 


CC *^< 


d dc. c c 


d 


C "^ 


c 


d <<^" 


ddc 


^^^ Cw^ 


c^ ^< 


.^d «^ <" f 


<I 


-<^ '^'- 






1 Cd^ 




cc « 


.d c" c c 


c 


11? ^' 


V. 


<jr «sitC 


<^<r^ 


^=^;- cc^"^ <- - '■ d 


cc 


cc<ii cCf c^ 


c 


Ti (,' 


^ 


^< «^ d< '^ 




<L«C 


'<• <dl ^<' ' ' ( 


1_ 


d 




**»—;- ^^~«»^ 

<«:<«- 


«C" <-^ ^ 


cic c^;_^ ;^- 


<L<r 


'^^^^IZ-^ 


<c 


dc 




^Cf < 


f«»r:^^ c.-'^ 


^ i^ ■ c:c: 


c c 


c< ^^~~ 


<^ 


<[< 




«:-. --'^ 


*c: ^^^^ 


^'ir cc tf^ ^ Cd 


cc c 


-dll_. 


c 


d 

CI 


d 


d:, c<»d ^'^ ^ 


^^C cc ^'^ C d 


Ci c 

dC 


cc d= ^ 


.^ — ^" 




^^cL <s 


<«C '- ^ 


^r^ cc cT^ ' ^' ^ 


c. d 


(■<^ ^^, 


<_ 




C' 


^Li ^'^ 


:^*d ' /; 


^ — ^< c< ^^ ^ • ^c C 


<1 <- 


cc ^cr^ 




cr 


^ ' — ■ 

d 




. «d ^ ■ 


m^v CJ-_ ^ ^J^ 


Cs d 


ci:^ c 


"'^' 

S 


c 
c 


c 


^r*cc ed 
<ir''^<-^- ^d^ 


dlvCXc^ C 


C d 

C< di 

c <r 


cc^^ ^ 


*^^2^-- ~ 




^ — 
act- < 


< 

c 
c 

_ c 


c 

c 
c 




diced <d < 

<icd:^<£:i '< 

^Lsdci-cc:' c 


d dc< C^ 
Cc <Cd ^ 

^ ^^c ^ 


r — 


c c 
c c 


«/^ 


oe;-^ 


^r^^ccd < 


c ' «c:d «-—- 

cc CCCc ^^. ■ 




<c c 


^B^ 


^^^^ ^^Cl^_- 


^^L__J>^^^-S=_ .,^-5:^ 


c .^ ccd <Z.^ ^ 


ccC 


-^•^^"j^'' 


^*d ^^di 


^d <i^<x CC 


C <J< 


K^ dl: 




^-^ 




dd 


z"^'?*' ^f 


<dz^vcc cc 

OdT <c<ic cc 




^^^ 




^ 






c<d <!.. 


<g^^<^^ 


C <S3 


^ ^^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 241 421 1 % 






.•>.'^V-: 



V-'.W//.,»; 



■ ' *.'' 



v.:«V^>'.:v;^3 










